[fpc-pascal] FPC for virtual machines?

[Matt Emson]

Jonas Maebe wrote:
> Whether or not it's a virtual machine, and whether or not an assembler 
> is available is not that important. What usually matters most is 
> whether you can map all FPC concepts (or at least the ones you want to 
> support) on the target (virtual or not) architecture.
Well, no, there are two approaches. (1) Replicate pascal syntax and 
follow basic concepts, (2) Replicate system verbatim. If the choice is 
(1) or nothing, I'd take (1) every time. This is why Goa works. It is 
not 100% compatible with standard C# (MS nor Mono), but I can take a 
project and convert it to something that does work. The basic concepts 
are there, and enough of the support library to make it fairly painless. 
If I was still as obsessed with Object Pascal as I was in 1998 - 2004, 
I'd far rather have a compiler that enabled me to re-use my skills - 
albeit with caveats and differences, than learn a completely new 
language from scratch. This is why I was initially excited about Chrome. 
However, as always, YMMV.

I have always followed the belief that, whilst FPC does what it does 
very well, sometimes simplification isn't a bad thing. Portability 
across platforms - with caveats, obviously, would be a nice addition.