[fpc-pascal] Pascal dialect -- was: Re: fpc-pascal Digest, Vol 72, Issue 12

[spir]

On Fri, 4 Jun 2010 13:21:09 +0200 (CEST)
Michael Van Canneyt <michael at freepascal.org> wrote:

> And to be honest, I think we do a very good job of it. Yes, we don't have
> 100% compatibility. But no, it's never 100%. But it is certainly good 
> enough to satisfy most people that need it.

Hello, Michael!

No doubt about this. And I take the opportunity to thank you (and all others) for this great (and huge) project. What I question is the necessity to keep Delphi-compliance now and for ever. And the consequent choice of _not_ making, progressively, a free (object) Pascal dialect, with its own design & principles, style & taste, and so on... (*)
Sure, I also understand the great advantage of reusing Delphi code and cloning its libraries, esp. for production code. But after so long, fpc could already have a relevant shared codebase, don't you think? (what by the way GNU PAscal does not have). How old is freepascal already, 10 years?

Denis

(*) For instance, I have had a look at GNU Pascal, and via this look discovered standard & extended Pascal design. I must say that on numerous points it looks better to me than TP & Delphi choices; standards were obviously very carefully designed. An FP freed of Delphi chains could take the best of this. "Free" also means free ;-)
Another point is the terrible library/unit mess, partially inherited from Borland pascal history, partially increased by compiler modes. Very hard to find what one looks for (except maybe if coming from BP). More or less, anything can hide anywhere; and there are variants of any feature; and many are just legacy from the 80's. (I don't even evoke the global namespace.) Severe, radical, cleanup needed, imo.
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