[fpc-pascal]WoW

[Keith Bowes]

Matt, I really don't understand why FPC lessening the strictness of Delphi's
implementation of OOP is hurting anything.  I mean, you can still declare
fields before methods if you want, but it's not necessary.  Maybe it would
be a good idea to force this strictness in {$MODE DELPHI}, but I think it
would be a bad idea to also force it in {$MODE OBJFPC}.

Also, I don't see the big problem with multiple inheritence and abstract
classes.

On a side note, GPC is supposedly going to implement OOP (the variety
described in the working draft) and treat .pp files as Pascal sources.  But
I've never tried GPC, primarily because it sounds like it would be hard to
get set up but also because I feel it's hypocrisy to make a Pascal compiler
with C.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Emson" <memsom at interalpha.co.uk>
To: <fpc-pascal at deadlock.et.tudelft.nl>
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [fpc-pascal]WoW


> Seeing as Borland essentialy 'popularized'  the 'class' style construction
> in Object Pascal, following their conventions causes a whole heap less
> heartache for Delphi programmers. I think you'll find that the number of
> Delphi programmers outweighs the number of programmers using compilers
with
> the specification below. To be honest, every Pascal compiler that I've
seen
> pretty much goes down the Borland compatibility route. In fact, the only
PC
> based compiler that I know of which implements any of the ANSI/ISO
standards
> for Extended Pascal is the Prospero one, let alone this OO standard. That
is
> pretty well unused. GPC may support parts of the ANSI/ISO standards, or
even
> all of the Extended standard, but we all know how impractical GPC is.
>
> I've tracked down a copy of the spec
> (http://www.pascal-central.com/OOE-stds.html) and firstly it's out of
date.
> It's almost 10 years old. Delphi wasn't even released at this point.
Whilst
> I can see that Delphi borrows a lot from the spec, it also drops a lot of
> the blatant garbage, such as Abstract classes and Multiple Inheritence.
> Delphi is the defacto standard when it comes to Object Pascal, breaking
the
> Borland standard is bad. It not only depreciates the usefulness of FPC,
but
> it also alientates the very people that will come to use FPC from our
> knowlege of Delphi. Name me one single compiler that uses this full spec
> that is in popular ussage, and on an Intel or PowerPC platform.
>
> I stand by my original comments. If you'd like a copy of the Borland
Object
> Pascal Grammar, I can scan/OCR it for you. Failing that, it's in the back
of
> the Delphi 5 Object Pascal Language Guide. The official Grammar for Class
is
> as follows:
>
> ClassType -> CLASS [ClassHeritage]
>           [ClassFieldList]
>           [ClassMethodList]
>           [ClassPropertyList]
>           END
>
> I think that speaks for itself.
>
> Matt
>