[fpc-devel] The future of fpmake

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Thu, 31 Mar 2011, Darius Blaszyk wrote:

>>>>>> (not to mention all the possible complications on Windows, probably Mac OS as well)
>>>>> Can you name a potential issue you see by renaming the makefile to some other extension? I thought that FPC does not mind which extension you use, as long as the syntax is correct?
>>>>
>>>> It does not mind.
>>>>
>>>> Well, if you don't intend to use it for FPC, you can do all you want;
>>>> you don't need our permission for that ?
>>>
>>> I was not asking permission or did I? It was you who stated that there were complications. I just asked to name one. Don't get me wrong, there might be some, but I fail to see which.
>>
>> But I didn't claim to know all possible complications. I just meant to say that are possibly catches
>> which we currently don't know about; so jumping on a system that relies on the "instantfpc" trick for all platforms may be a bit premature. The thing is barely a week old :-)
> You're absolutely right of course. And I didn't want to imply we should switch in 24h :) I was just exploring the possibilities here. Using instantFPC once added as a FPC tool makes usage much more user friendly!
>
>> That said:
>> Obviously, you can give your fpmake script/program any extension you want for your 'outside fpc' projects, associate whatever you want with it on all platforms you see fit.
>>
>> But since fppkg is for the express (and only) purpose of installing FPC code packages, I see nothing wrong with requiring .pas or .pp as an extension for the fpmake file if it is to be used with fppkg.
> Also there everything you say is logic, although it does not mean that there couldn't be any other ways to reach a goal. However having an extension that is "executable" on all platforms seems like a valuable addition for FPC and Lazarus does it not? If we could reach consensus on something like .pex (for Pascal EXecutable) or whatever is appropriate and does not clash with existing software, then the FPC and Lazarus installers could associate this extension to instantFPC. Of course this is only valid for win32, but having an agreed extension would make things more transparent and uniform.

In essence you're saying: 
now that we have instantfpc, why not agree on a file extension for scripts to be used with it, and 
register it by default ? If so, then: yes. I can live with .pex; I could equally well live with .pes 
(Pascal Executable Script) or whatever. I have no real opinion about that.

Mainly since I'm a unix user, and will write my scripts without extension anyway ;-)

Michael.