[fpc-devel] Alternative parsers

[Juha Manninen (gmail)]

On Tuesday 19 October 2010 11:10:29 Matt Emson wrote:
> On 19 Oct 2010, at 06:50, Alexander Klenin <klenin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 16:19, Hans-Peter Diettrich
> > 
> > <DrDiettrich1 at aol.com> wrote:
> >> So there's left nothing what I could do for FPC.
> > 
> > I suggest you start a git-maintained fork.
> 
> I have been biting my tongue a lot this week and almost posted the same
> thing earlier on Sunday. It strikes me that DoDi wants to do some
> interesting, experimental and radical changes and refactoring to the
> codebase. A fork is the only real option. This removes the burden from the
> core developers, makes DoDi able to prove his theories without constantly
> arguing with the core developers and stops the arguments on this list. As
> I see it, Florian et al are less likely than ever to accept patches from
> him. He does not want to conform to their coding style and is rocking the
> status quo. DoDi sees Florian et al as a giant road block in his attempts
> to move FPC forwards as an academic exercise. A fork will solve this issue
> completely.

+1
The current situation is frustrating for everybody.

I understood DoDi's one goal is to refactor the front end so that other 
language parsers can be added. First Pascal-like languages and later C.
FPC's main developer doesn't see a need for it.
That is a fundamental difference. A fork is the only solution.

Competition can be good and beneficial, too.
If DoDi really comes up with a stable compiler that supports many languages, 
people start asking why FPC didn't do the same. Then maybe things get merged.
It will not happen soon though. DoDi's changes are so fundamental that they 
inevitably break something first.

I promise follow closely and test the fork if it becomes a reality.


Juha