[fpc-devel] Russian locale information not compatible with FPC locale variables

[Florian Klaempfl]

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:
> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 5:50 PM, Daniël Mantione
> <daniel.mantione at freepascal.org> wrote:
>>> Boost the usage of Unicode in FPC that would boost the usage of FPC
>>> itself. Unicode is one of the most demanded features (beside cross platform,
>>> 64bit support, etc) in Delphi since Delphi 7 (2001?). Yet, CodeGear never
>>> fulfill it until Tiburon.
>> Why would it boost FPC usage?
> 
> Like Bee said... The time frame has come and gone!  

We spent this time frame with making FPC multiplatform. Knowing what's 
important doesn't help. You need the time to implement it. I (and 
probably a lot of other people) know that really good multithreading 
support would be currently a killer feature, especially with language 
support. I don't have time to implement it. In three years some smart 
guy says, the time frame for good multithreading has come and gone. Great.

> If you read the
> delphi.non-technical newsgroup you would notice that quite a few

delphi.non-technical is yellow press made by users for users.

> Delphi developers use FPC for backend features. Linux services etc...
> They also talked about FPC having 64bit support.  If FPC didn't worry
> to much about compatibility and instead implemented Unicode support

FPC has unicode support for years. Remember what a widestring is?

> long ago like it could have, it might just have boosted FPC usage,

Unlikely. Anyways, who is interested in usage? The important part is 
contribution.

> beating Borland to the punch by about 7 years.  FPC could have
> attracted and converted more Delphi developers...

Compatibility is the only way to attract Delphi developers. Just 
consider the kcl/fpgui vs. lcl case: kcl/fpgui started before the lcl 
and was much more advanced regarding the design than e.g. the vcl. 
Nobody except Sebastian and years later you were interested in it. 
People used the lcl. The MSE is fully unicode. How much people use it 
and contribute? Without Martin, MSE would be dead.