[fpc-devel] Alternative parsers

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2010, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> Op 2010-10-19 08:59, Paul Ishenin het geskryf:
>>
>> The most wanted feature is "Unicode string support".
>
> What Hans-Peter meant is that even if he does implement Unicode String
> support, that would require changes in the compiler. Florian apparently
> doesn't like any changes to the compiler, plus he sees no need for Unicode
> String support, so why would others. ;-)

Changes to the compiler are allowed and have been implemented at various
times with very good results. Paul is living proof of this.

But in all cases the changes are 
- smaller in scope.
- desired features.

I don't think you would take it kindly if I showed up with an interior house
designer and re-decorated your whole house in some flashy 70-ies hippy look,
just because I think it looks better.
You'd probably first ask him to do your son's room - as a test - and see how
that turns out. Then maybe you'd let him work on the rest of your house.

Same is true here.

Currently all we got from Hans Peter were unmanageable patches supposedly 
fixing things that were not broken or in need of fixing.

If he had first done some smaller things - take your pick in the bugtracker
- and we had seen that this goes well, then maybe such pervasive changes
would be discussable.

You also would't let the handyman from around the corner construct a 10-story
appartment building just like that, I suppose, and then go and happily live 
in the penthouse ?

In each case, this is the "chronicle of a death foretold". Not because we
don't want changes, but because all guiding road signs we put up have been 
ignored since day 1. Just read the mail threads. It starts with the discussion 
that the fcl-passrc parser doesn't handle all compiler constructs. Instead
of fixing that, Hans-Peter went off on a completely different angle, for which
none of the core developers saw any future, and on more than one occasion
pointed this out. And here we are now...

That we would be accused of not allowing changes, this also was foretold.

Michael.