On 21 Nov 2002 at 15:39, Marco van de Voort wrote:
[...]
IMHO it is no use to support a subset of a dialect (e.g. Delphi), and not at least strive to go all the way in the long run.
Compability is of little use in practice if it requires more changes than once every 100 lines. (and that is libraries + language)
(one can of course strive for a lesser version than the newest Delphi version at first)
I agree. This discussion does raise a fundamental question - should GPC aim for Delphi-compatibility at all? BP is a closed target, and therefore BP compatibility alone might not lead us anywhere except to provide a fixed point of reference - the same goes for ISO 7185 and ISO 10206. They are all not going any other place anytime soon.
But once we have these fixed reference points as a lowest common denominator and a convergence point for all Pascal implementations, then what next? Everybody (GPC included) adds this or that to their implementation that, if used, breaks compatibility with other compilers. This is fine, as long as people can opt to code to one of the fixed reference points (ISO BP (ha! ;), ISO 7185 and ISO 10206).
Delphi is a moving target (and it is the only constantly evolving "standard") and we might well decide to ignore it totally (either because it is too hard to keep up with, or because we don't like where it is going, or for any other reason). But if we don't ignore it completely, then what do we do? Supporting "()" is a small matter that doesn't add much to the GPC compiler, but it could become a real pain not to have it if we are to try and use free Delphi code that will increasingly make use of the feature. It is an un-Pascalish thing to support - but does this mean that we should ignore it, or treat it as a leprous extension that should be viewed with disdain? Perhaps - but there may well be other things that will be added to Delphi in the future that we might dislike even more. So we still need (IMHO) to make a fundamental decision - is Delphi-compatibility worth striving for? If the answer is "yes", then I don't think that we can pick and choose which features we like to support. If the answer is "no", then we might as well stop adding any more Delphi- compatibility features.
It is of no consequence to me personally which way the decision goes, since I have Delphi and Kylix and I can use them if I want for Windows and Linux programming. So, from my "sitting on the fence" position, I can say, like Marco, that half-hearted support is not of much use. Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. So we should either do it well (in the course of time and when time permits) or we should just drop it.
Best regards, The Chief --------- Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku (The African Chief) Web: http://www.bigfoot.com/~african_chief/