[fpc-devel] Interface scope incompatibility with Delphi

[Thaddy]

On 11-11-2010 0:21, Henry Vermaak wrote:
> On 10 November 2010 18:13, Alexander Klenin<klenin at gmail.com>  wrote:
> Why didn't they just set a bounty or pay a compiler dev to fix it?
> I'm sure that would be cheaper than buying lots of Delphi licences.
>
> Henry
> _______________________________________________
It isn't! Not by a long way.

This "fix" sounds a major redesign and could take up to at least 6- 9 
months (in FTE's, hours if you wish) for a seriously good team (like the 
compiler core team actually is, slime, smile).
I just left a (large) team that is top - notch. Average salary €5500,- 
monthly (incl. the free pension scheme) , senior seniors more.
An XE site license for 20 developers is still *a lot* cheaper than that, 
with proper negotiations. But it is not X platform. If you want a X 
platform business and drive it through pascal dialects you are basically 
stuck to two options: GNU Pascal (written and maintained in C) and 
FreePascal (written and maintained in Pascal).

That's why sometimes a commercial compiler is hard to beat.
What I like about FPC is that I can make my hands dirty and fix the 
bugs/features myself.
This is especially important for small to middle size companies, because 
if a big one (company) shouts, Embarcadero squieks... and tries to fix 
it asap.

Graeme should realize that the Delphi compilers (or MS compilers or 
Watson, or Intel) can all drive you nuts with behaveour beyond the 
documentation or beyond logic.
At least with FPC, you can do something about it, like with the GNU 
compiler set. That one is also prone to a lot of "features", btw, 
especially cross platform.

Just my two cents. Euro cents are used only virtual anyway.

Thaddy