[fpc-devel] Interface scope incompatibility with Delphi

[Florian Klaempfl]

Am 12.11.2010 08:51, schrieb Graeme Geldenhuys:
> 
> Creating developer tools has another problem of it's own. Unlike Delphi,
> there is no stable, long term shipment of compiled units and specific FPC
> version, so in the world of FPC, developers tools must ship as source code.
> This again raise the issue with bugs in the compiler itself. I may have my
> compiler patched, but others will not, so I can't rely on my compiler
> behaviour in those developer tools for other developers to use.

As long as you don't change the PPU format and the ABI, you can use and
ship a patched compiler which uses e.g. the released units. A 2.4.0 or
2.4.2 compiler hacked to do delphi like temp. releasing of interface (if
it doesn't require an abi change!) variables should work perfectly with
plain 2.4.0/2.4.2 units.