[fpc-devel] Thoughts on being able to declare "pointer-to-type" parameters directly in method signatures?

[Dmitry Boyarintsev]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 12:57 AM Ben Grasset <operator97 at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, you're going to keep pretending like you're actually concerned about
> maintaining the integrity of some (completely fictional) "traditional"
> Pascal (that FPC never has been and was presumably never intended to be),
> and implying that arbitrary *syntax diagrams* of all things are
> non-trivially relevant to real people writing real Pascal code in real
> life? Great, I guess we won't be getting anywhere productive then.
>

Then be productive and say - "yes, there must be an exception". That's it.
It's not about a Pascal purity, it's about a design purity.

Just like the same example you've had with dynamic and open arrays. They
were pretty much added as an exception. And they stayed.
So maybe there's an exception for a reference type as well.
Yet they also can be considered as a "need for delphi" compatibility, in
context of FPC.

So, if the exception proposed by you is to be accepted, maybe others should
follow as well?


> If you or anyone else *actually *cared about that sort of thing at all,
> FPC would not do or allow many things that it currently does.
> Unfortunately, that would have the nasty side effect of making it a
> significantly less useful compiler for an objectively less useful form of
> the language,
>
Exactly. Let's add more nastiness to one's favor. It's your turn now, so
why not?! right?!

...or maybe you would like to do more of this FDU work?!
And rather than making a big deal of reference type for a parameter, would
come up with a better design in general?
So pascal rule would state something like:
paramName : type_descriptor
rather than
paramName : type_identifier

where type_description would be something more, than a language entity used
in parameter declaration.
I don't know. Unlike you, I don't have decades and decades in Pascal
development.

You could probably even create a patch for the compiler. Introduce is it as
your own "modeswitch" and let others run it.
Being productive!

thanks,
Dmitry
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