So FPC plans to always be worse off than Delphi. :-( I really think
playing 'catchup' with somebody like Delphi is not a good thing. They
have different goals as far as I can see, plus their future doesn't
look bright (for a very long time now). Delphi tries to compete with
Microsoft using Microsoft's own tool (.NET). We all know how that
turns out when anybody tries to compete with Microsoft. Because of
that, Delphi language features are very behind compared to the
developer demand. So now FPC wants to be even more behind, because we
need to wait for Delphi to one day get there act together. :-(
Yup. If it's really the case then I'm sorry to say that FPC has such a
"loser mentality". FPC has chances to become the leader of object pascal
native compiler since Delphi was starting to die after Delphi 7. But,
instead of taking the lead, FPC let itself and the users down in the
name of "compatibility". What a shame! :-P
Then why FPC implemented generics before Delphi in the first place? I
never heard compatibility issue when we discussed about this feature.
Delphi didn't have this feature when FPC implemented its own syntax on
generics. I was proud to know that FPC really implemented generics
before Delphi did. It made me confident to completely using FPC and
forget Delphi. I saw bright future with FPC. But now... :(
Unicode is another issue. Delphi dictates there design decisions based
on Windows only. FPC targets multiple platforms, so we should target
our implementations based on OUR requirements.
+1
Compatibility is good, no doubt about it. But if it obstacles FPC to
have feature(s) that most users need, FPC should put compatibility issue
aside and get users need on higher priority. Be the first, be the
leader, be a winner. If Delphi then implements it (if ever) in different
way, then we can start to discuss about compatibility. It's absurd
talking compatibility to something that even doesn't exist!
An open source project trying to be compatible with a commercial
product is simply a pipe dream. That's my thought on the subject, but
that irrelevant I guess because I have no say in the FPC core team and
there direction. I'm also getting a bit off topic here..
FPC could lead the object pascal "standard" and make Borland /CodeGear
/Embarcadero /whatever follows what FPC had done. Not the other way
around. How can FPC become a better compiler than Delphi if FPC doesn't
have the gut to be the best?! :(
Please look at other open source projects that have dignity to win the
competition e.g. Linux, Apache, Firefox, etc. They dare to be different
on the beginning but people begin to follow them in the end. They never
want to be a "clone" or "copycat" or "shadow" or "tail" to other
successful (commercial) products. They have winner mentality, that's why
they succeed.
Sorry to be a little bit out of topic here. I just couldn't hold myself
to express my opinion on this.
-Bee-
_______________________________________________
fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org
http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
