[fpc-pascal] Namespaces Support

Marco van de Voort marcov at stack.nl
Fri Oct 25 14:15:52 CEST 2013


In our previous episode, Michael Van Canneyt said:
> > Yes. And he deserves it IMHO.
> 
> Strange reaction.
> 
> As I said: the above scenario is the very reason why namespaces were
> invented to begin with.

Not that I can see. It seems that Embarcadero used it mostly for own
purposes, not the users, and their support scenarios.
 
> We make a feature available, and then you are going to say to users of
> this feature "if you use it as intended, it is your own fault, you deserve
> what you get"

I see it as a cost/benefit tradeoff. It is not the namespace added feature
that I worry about, but the fact that you force all existing users to find
out what is going on and set default namespaces in their projects.

> What kind of attitude is that ?
> 
> We can discuss the desirability of the namespaces feature. 
> I am of the opinion that we didn't need them at all. 
> But OK, Delphi compatibility and so on. We know the reasons.

True. But it is now the time to force this XE2+ breaking change, while
you are so opposed of doing the same for the D2009 string change?

And at least that is a major deal, the namespace stuff is rarely benefiting
anybody, but forcing updates on all.
 
> But if we do decide to introduce them, then we must be consequent all the
> way through and support their use as intended.  That includes IMHO
> releasing a RTL/FCL whatnot with all the proper namespaces.

So let's not introduce them then. Or at least wait with breaking changes
till the platform is there and older versions are mostly dead.



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