[fpc-pascal] Re: Delphi's anonymous functions in Free Pascal

[michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011, Marco van de Voort wrote:

> In our previous episode, michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be said:
>>>
>>> targethread.queue(
>>>   procedure(targetobject:ttargetobject;a:integer;b:someobject;c:string)
>>>              begin
>>>                targetobject.destinationprocedure(a,b,c);
>>>              end;
>>>
>>> Note how common this looks compared to the original.
>>
>> One point is that you could do the above with a local (and named)
>> procedure as well, and still have all the context.
>
>> At the very least you would not be raping pascal's readability by putting a
>> complete procedure declaration inside a code block.
>>
>> I don't know about you, but I have serious trouble reading the above monstrosity.
>> It looks like you forgot the closing ) for the queue call.
>
> One can debate the syntax. I won't, since even while I have similar
> reservations, that will lead to the usual Delphi sucks debate, possible
> implementation of an-orphaned-at-birth FPC specific syntax, and in the end
> the Delphi syntax always prevails, leading to a lot of wasted time in
> discussion and implementation of own inventions.
>
> That is such a common pattern on these lists, I'm thinking about an acronym
> for it to save time :-) So sufficient to say, I think own syntax inventions
> are worse than the problem in the first place, and sooner or later we have
> to live with it.
>
> However there was also a questioning of the use(functionality) of anonymous
> functions, I hope that I have now at least explained a typical use case, so
> we can put that to rest.

Please note that I didn't question their use, just the syntax :)

Michael.