27.01.2014, 15:02, "Fred van Stappen" <fi...@hotmail.com>:
>> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:53:25 +0100
>> From: xhaj...@hajny.biz
>> To: fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org
>> Subject: Re: [fpc-pascal] Pure FPC ?
>>
>> On Mon, January 27, 2014 01:38, Fred van Stappen wrote:
>> > Ok, i will try to explain better.
>> >
>> > When you compile fpc, you do > make clean + make all.
>> >
>> > Is it possible to configure fpc-compil and disable Delphi
>> > compatibility...?
>> >
>> > If not possible, no problem, i only want to know :-) .
>>
>> Short and simple answer - no, it isn't possible.
>>
>> Slightly longer answer - even if disregarding mode "DELPHI", there are
>> several other modes supported by FPC. More than one mode is used within
>> the FPC source tree (at least FPC, OBJFPC and MACPAS). The modes do not
>> differ only by syntax but also by the supported features, but different
>> modes use a combination of features often also used in other modes. All in
>> all, even if someone wanted to perform the surgery and remove all
>> references to mode DELPHI, the potential gains with regard to compilation
>> speed would be probably very limited.
>>
>> Finally - trying to remove a feature allowing users to reuse source code
>> coming from others doesn't sound very smart even if somebody doesn't use
>> such external source code today.
>>
>> Tomas
>
> Hello.
>
> Thank you Tomas for your cool and clear answer.
>
>> Finally - trying to remove a feature allowing users to reuse source code
>> coming from others doesn't sound very smart even if somebody doesnt
>> use such external source code today.
>
> Hum, yes, you are right...
>
> Long life for fpc....
>


More compiler modes = more complexity = more difficulties for people who 
support & develop FPC
Over time FPC and Delphi modes are becoming increasingly incompatible. I 
predict that sooner or later FPC developers will have to drop Delphi mode 
support because FPC & Delphi modes will become just too different to be built 
in one compiler. Maybe we will have two compilers: FreeDelphi and FreePascal. 
Note that Embarcadero introduces more and more new features to their product. 
FPC already can't support many of them. For example, string in Delphi 2009 and 
later is double-byte string; char is widechar. In FPC Char is still 1-byte char 
even in Delphi mode. What I think will happen is that at some point FPC will no 
longer be able to add more new Delphi features support to Delphi mode like it 
already happened with string=widestring, so Delphi mode in FPC will always mean 
Delphi 2007 and earlier. The reasons is that introducing new Delphi features to 
FPC Delphi mode is becoming increasingly difficult because Delphi and FPC are 
following different paths; so we are likely to be left with De
 lphi 2007 compatibility forever. So perhaps FPC developers can safely remove 
Delphi mode support in 2027... Well, for now we can still reuse Delphi 
libraries which are supposed to work in Delphi 2007 or earlier; these are good 
news.
Having both Delphi and FPC modes in one compiler had sense while these modes 
were similar; but with latest Delphi versions this is no longer the case.
_______________________________________________
fpc-pascal maillist  -  fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org
http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal

Reply via email to