From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Delphi, Pascal, delphi-mode, pascal-mode, and free software Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:48:36 +0200 Message-ID: References: <1284118567.2190.29.camel@hamlet.localdomain> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1284122937 28681 80.91.229.12 (10 Sep 2010 12:48:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:48:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Simon South Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 10 14:48:56 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ou32F-0000X4-0d for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:48:55 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:35917 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ou32E-0004mp-Dt for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:48:54 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=39290 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ou321-0004gX-Ca for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:48:47 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ou320-0006OY-0L for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:48:41 -0400 Original-Received: from impaqm2.telefonica.net ([213.4.138.2]:64898) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ou31z-0006O2-RP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:48:39 -0400 Original-Received: from IMPmailhost5.adm.correo ([10.20.102.126]) by IMPaqm2.telefonica.net with bizsmtp id 4tXj1f00v2jdgqJ3M0odB4; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:48:37 +0200 Original-Received: from ceviche.home ([83.61.42.227]) by IMPmailhost5.adm.correo with BIZ IMP id 50oc1f00L4u4RdP1l0oddr; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:48:37 +0200 X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-TE-authinfo: authemail="monnier$movistar.es" |auth_email="monnier@movistar.es" X-TE-AcuTerraCos: auth_cuTerraCos="cosuitnetc01" Original-Received: by ceviche.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 9BF2A660D2; Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:48:36 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <1284118567.2190.29.camel@hamlet.localdomain> (Simon South's message of "Fri, 10 Sep 2010 07:36:07 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:129888 Archived-At: >> > Can someone enlighten me on the status of Delphi w.r.t Free Software? >> > AFAICT it's proprietary (and there's a Free Software alternative called >> > Lazarus which is IIUC a sort of library for Free Pascal). > Yes, that's correct. (Well, I believe Lazarus is more an > IDE-slash-RAD-tool than a set of libraries. But yes, the idea is that > Lazarus + Free Pascal would be a free replacement for Delphi.) Hmm... so we should rename delphi.el to something else, since we don't like packages that are dedicated to supporting proprietary software. >From the above I gather than the language part of Delphi is basically the same as Free Pascal, so maybe we could rename it free-pascal.el? >> > Also, what's the relationship between pascal-mode and delphi-mode? >> > Is there some overlap between the two, should there be more overlap, >> > or less? > Each of these targets a different major dialect of Pascal and is > completely separate from the other. OK. Indeed from looking at them there didn't seem to be much shared ancestry. Do you happen to know what major dialect of Pascal is supported by pascal-mode? > Having a single mode might be nice but I think writing a parser that > would (neatly) handle both dialects would be a big challenge. > Plus I seem to recall the two modes are quite different > architecturally at the moment, so at least one would need to > be rewritten. Merging seems difficult, indeed. But at least from what you say, it seems like it would be desirable to try and shape future changes so as to reduce the differences rather than increase them. Stefan