[fpc-pascal] Syntax changes suggestions

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2018, Sven Barth via fpc-pascal wrote:

> Am 20.07.2018 um 00:53 schrieb Ben Grasset:
>> If a feature works as intended and is useful (which is all that 
>> matters), how is it "blind copying"?
> Because a feature might change the language in a way that's not in the 
> spirit of the language. Look at how Delphi implemented attributes: 
> they're declared in front of the types, fields, parameters, whatever, 
> simply copied from how C# implemented them while in the spirit of Pascal 
> they should have been *after* the declarations.

There is more to a language than 'works as intended and is useful'.

If this were "all that matters", you must consequently switch to the language
with the most features (whatever it is these days). Many do so.

But there can be other criteria as well. For example readability.
I find the C family of languages with their abundance of brackets utterly unreadable.
Conciseness is also valued by many. 
Scala for example is very concise, but because of this, utterly unreadable. 
I often need to re-read a statement 3 times to understand what is happening.

This is not to say that Pascal should stay immutable, or that readability is
the only criterion.

There is definitely room for improvement in Pascal. 
And improvements will be made, but adhering to the spirit of Pascal.
(intentionally left undefined)

Michael.