[fpc-pascal] Underscores in numerical literals - grouping

[Lars]

On Tue, November 22, 2016 6:12 am, Martin Schreiber wrote:
> On 11/21/2016 03:46 PM, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
>
>> The age old rule
>> of programmer source code always being in a mono-spaced font is
>> ridiculous for this day and age.
>>
...
> A programmer scans code most the time vertically
> or block by block and not horizontally and word by word as normal text. And
> for that a monospace font is much better suited because of the straight
> vertical character columns.

Agree. The idea that reading code is like reading a novel, was put forth
by IMO a somewhat idiot, Rob Pike in this particular case, as far as I
remember. His argument was that C code was easier to
read_with_lots_of_underscores.

My counter argument was that underscores jump out like a symbol, like a
minus sign, so you pollute the code with symbols, and there is enough
space and symbols already littered throughout the code.

As for underscores in numbers, it is an interesting idea but I see delphi
compatibility issues coming up.... any code you want to port has to be
converted to non underscores, or delphi would have to implement the
feature at some point. Another mode switch if check in the compiler, in
possibly more than one place.