[fpc-devel] Project Idea: Mini-FPC

[Skybuck Flying]

3 comments:

"
1) Floating point support is necessary for the compiler to compile/build
itself, because floating point number support needs to be available in the
compiler itself (otherwise source files containing floating point numbers
cannot be processed by the compiler).
"

Why would a basic/core compiler which does not support floating point 
numbers need floating point numbers ?

Doesn't make much sense to me.

Surely free pascal can be reduced so far to integers only.

I can only imagine math.pas containing PI but math.pas should not be part of 
a basic/core compiler anyway.

So this argument of yours seems to make little sense unless you can give a 
very convincing example of "floats" being used inside the core of free 
pascal compiler.

"
2) Needs of different users vary considerably. A user interested in
compiling a simple console 'hello world' program using procedural Pascal
needs only unit System and nothing else, a user creating 'hello world' in
a GUI window using Object Pascal has much broader needs (broader than the
compiler itself).
"

No, calling the windows gui requires a windows api. It has nothing to do 
with compiler technology.

So again this argument of yours makes little sense.

"
3) Everyone is free to create a special installation package for his own
needs, but I can hardly imagine something like that becoming part of the
general FPC distribution.
"

The mini-fpc should be a "side-project" for those people interested in 
compiler technology only and not everything else.

Bye,
  Skybuck.