[fpc-devel] Code is clean now, but how about documentation?

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Mattias Gaertner wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 19:09:23 +0200 (CEST)
> Michael Van Canneyt <michael at freepascal.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> > 
> > > In our previous episode, Tom Verhoeff said:
> > > > I don't want to wake up sleeping dogs, but while updating various
> > > > slides to base them on FreePascal/Lazarus instead of Delphi, I
> > > > found that some documentation that I had copied from the Delphi
> > > > Help years ago (probably version 6 or so), is literally the same
> > > > in the FreePascal RTL documentation.
> > >  
> > > > In this particular case, it concerns the text for the String
> > > > function Delete:
> > > > 
> > > >   Delete removes Count characters from string S, starting at
> > > > position Index.  All characters after the deleted characters are
> > > > shifted Count positions to the left, and the length of the string
> > > > is adjusted.
> > > > 
> > > > It is word for word exactly the same in the current FPC RTL
> > > > reference.
> > 
> > Given that I didn't even own or use Delphi at the time the system
> > unit was first documented, this is strange news indeed. 
> > 
> > In each case:
> > The documentation has been hand-written from scratch, always in the 
> > 'joe' editor, starting on a 486 machine exclusively running linux
> > version 1.x something (As some core members may remember, the machine
> > was called tflily) many years ago when I just did the Linux port. The
> > editing has always been done on a linux machine. Copy & Paste from a
> > TP or Delphi manual or help file is excluded, unless performed by
> > someone else than me: there have been some minor contributions over
> > the years - but they are rare, considering the more than 2000 pages.
> > A few bigger exceptions aside, I couldn't even say which ones or
> > remember the last contribution.
> 
> Maybe you should sue Codegear.

Och, with the current worldwide financial crisis, I would probably be too 
late anyway, if the Codegear/Inprise/Borland past is any indicator ;)

Michael.