[fpc-pascal] Re: type declarations

[listmember]

>> Thing is, not only do I love Pascal, but --here is the difference--
>> I have always used Pascal, all my life :-)
> 
> Then why did this confuse you?  And why on earth would you want to 
> weaken Pascal's rules which happen to be its strengths?  There is no 
> reason why a developer shouldn't know the language they are using.  
> Pascal is a well-established language.  Most of the reason I've always 
> used Pascal is because of it's strict adherance to certain rules and 
 > philosophies, and it's Wirthian nature.  Pascal is the philosophy,
 > not the syntax.

IMO, there are things that are pertinent to the core of the
philosphy, and there are other things.

Let's begin with Wirth and 'Wirthian nature'...

Well, I respect him a lot, but that does not mean I have to
worship him. And, I daresay that applies to a lot of Pascal
lovers...

Let's now briefly touch the statement that 'Pascal is a 
well-established language'...

The Pascal I used first did not know a thing about objects,
dynamic arrays; operator overloading, nor did it know how to
treat strings, among a number of other things..

And, on the topic of 'adherance to certain rules and philosophies'..

Luckily, people then were not so adamanat about --so called---
Wirthian nature of Pascal... including Wirth himself; just look
at the things Wirth altered in Modula/Oberon series.

So... Not only the 'strict adherance to certain rules' thing
is not cast in stone, but also --it seems-- can change from
one version of the same compiler to the other...

Finally, about 'Pascal is the philosophy, not the syntax'..

As far as I gather, the only philosophy behind Pascal was
to remove ambiguity in written code. And, that's it.

If there is no ambiguity, why worry about whether it
conforms to some mystical/celestial strictness..