[fpc-devel] Unicodestring branch, please test and help fixing

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

Dear Sirs ,


Any extension to FPC useful to users is a very good action.
My suggestion about string types is as follows :

Use a specific type name for the string kind names
such as

type a : Unicode_8_String ;
type b : Unicode_16_String ;
type c : Unicode_32_String ;

When ..._String [ n ] is used it may be taken as
a length limited string of respective type .

Implement any one of the kinds and allow its use .
Later on , when it will be possible , implement another one .

In that way , no one of the programs developed with a
type will be modified due to semantic changes of that type .

This will also allow "upward compatibility" of programs
with respect to compiler rules .

Overloading of many concepts into a single type such as
"String" is causing big troubles during development of
"Big" programs spanning many versions of a compiler .

This overloading  is also making maintenance of large programs
very difficult . Instead of loading a new concept into an
already type in use , it is better to define a new type with
a new name and leave the previous type as it is .

What I mean about "upward compatibility" may be
seen in the following pages :



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Interoperability

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_integration


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_compatibility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_interoperability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_interoperability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_ontology_%28computer_science%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_%28computer_science%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_XP


http://www.microsoft.com/interop/
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/about/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_compatibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portability_%28software%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_interoperability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_application_integration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDDEM
( Synchronization and Management of Different Distributed Enterprise 
Models (SDDEM) )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_converter


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_migration



IBM :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-67
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_%28Operating_system%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/VM


VM (operating system) :

In the above article ,
it is said that z/VM is able to run executables
dating back to 1960's
from IBM's CP/CMS on the IBM System/360-67 .

http://cap-lore.com/Software/CP.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_z9

( This system is compatible with
24-bit and 32-bit System/360 ,                       
31-bit and 32-bit ESA/370 ,
  and itself  is 64-bit .)
                                    




Thank you very much .