[fpc-pascal] readonly variables

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009, Anthony Walter wrote:

>> That should be removed, actually.
>
> I'll take that as an admission that you were wrong. It's in the
> specification, lot's of code uses the feature, and it works the way I
> described.

I'm not admitting anything here, I am attempting to enlighten you :-)

>
> Changing the specification to match your argument is stupid.

I'm not changing any specifications. They are what they are, 
I neither make nor control them. I did create the docs, and at 
that time I believed that the zero-out behaviour of the 
compiler/linker for certain sections in the executable 
could be taken for granted.

It was Jonas Maebe (Jonas, correct me if I'm wrong) who pointed
out (already some time ago) that this behaviour is purely 
coincidental (but admittedly convenient), and should not be taken 
for granted. At that time I should have removed the statement 
you refer to from the docs, but I did not (I probably forgot 
it was there in the first place).

So: no "admissions", just a lesson in history of FPC and its docs.
I'll now confer with the rest of the Core team about our 'official'
attitude in this.

Michael.