[fpc-pascal] Generic String Functions

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Michael Schnell said:
> I see that trying different kinds of "Delphi compatibility plus 
> OS-independence" (which obviously is a contradiction in itself) makes a 
> lot of sense for the fpc / Lazarus combination.

I don't really see it. I'm not even sure if I would like it, even if there
was no Delphi compatibility to consider.
 
> But what do you mean by "fork" regarding the compiler and RTL (which 
> would be the prerequisite for any decent LCL implementation).

Well, since the choices for FPC have been made, you were working on your own
version, a bit like MSEGUI's Martin Schreiber?

> A) Doing a "Generic" (fully dynamically encoded) String type.
> 
> Here, IMHO regarding the compiler a fork is not necessary, as this is a 
> pure addition.

It is necessarily, since you must show it can actually work. Since you want
a decision as much as possible, I wouldn't work in a branch but in a
separate fork, and just hack it to run on say Linux and Windows. Just as a
proof of concept.

If you have a working proof of concept it is much easier to convince people
to give it a go. Much easier than with just two paragraphs of descriptions
fragmented over 250 unicode discussion messages.

> B) another idea of forking on behalf of Lazarus could be to do a "Delphi 
> compatible" branch with a completely UTF16 based RTL (and compiler 
> magic) and a "Lazarus compatible" branch with a completely UTF8 based 
> RTL (and compiler magic)

single source two releases, or two source two releases?