[fpc-devel] Pascal Standard, and what we can do.

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Michael Van Canneyt said:
> ? Not at all.
> 
> I simply don't understand why people want to introduce concepts of other languages.
> Just use the other language, spare yourself the agony.

Just look at the forum. What is talked there? Languagewise only more Delphi
compatibility, unless it is from the people who are actually adding syntax.

Overall? Things like fpspreadsheet get more responsed than any language
feature combined.

> What confuses me even more: C has been around since as long as pascal. 
> It does not seem plagued by this need to be "modern".

That's because basic syntax is inherited by all other languages. It is so
pervasive that most accept it as a given without thinking, and want to
change everything to it.

What worries me most is that language debate is again driven by shortness of
notation and other very local typing optimizations (like the var block).

Typing was never the limiting factor in programming, and carving up the
language for typing's sake will not have a noticable effect on any
production use of the (FP-)pascal language.

If, and only if you want to do language extensions, it should be about
making new aspects doable, not reducing typing and increasing superficial
language syntax.

(moreover can you borrow C syntax without accepting C's everything is an int
expression mantra? Can you randomly borrow from C# (and its slightly
Wirthianized cousin Oxygene) without changing into a GCed language and a
Java/C# typesystem?)