Hi,
Just update my pas2js to v1.5 (trunk). It seems pas2js doesn’t support -Sj option (writeable constant). Would you please support it? I think writeable constant is a design mistake of Pascal language by Borland that we have to deal forever. Personally, I always disable it, since I knew it could be disabled. FPC should disable it by default too, at least on ObjFPC mode. A constant should never be writeable, ever. Thank you.
Regards,
–Mr Bee
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Mr Bee wrote

Hi, Just update my pas2js to v1.5 (trunk). It seems pas2js doesn’t support -Sj option (writeable constant). Would you please support it? I think writeable constant is a design mistake of Pascal language by Borland that we have to deal forever. Personally, I always disable it, since I knew it could be disabled. FPC should disable it by default too, at least on ObjFPC mode. A constant should never be writeable, ever.

I don't understand what you want ?
Do you want consts to be writable or not ? You ask for a switch but at the same time advocate against writable const ?

That said:

I really don't think we should support this. Not any more.

If 20 years after the demise of Turbo Pascal we cannot expect people to change a couple of consts into a var, then all hope for humanity (well, at least the pascal programming community) is simply lost.

FPC was created when TP still existed. It made sense to allow writable const for easy porting. Same for Delphi. But IMHO not in a new tool 25 years after the facts.

I would not stop patches that implement this, but I consider this very low priority indeed.

Michael.

-Sj was added in fpc 3.3.1 (or was it 3.1?) and enables writeables const (default).
Mr Bee wants to disable it (-Sj-) to get read only const.

pas2js supports the directive {$writeableconst off}. It was lacking the -Sj flag.

I added it now.

Mattias

The main use of writable consts that you can only cover with OOP otherwise is static, scoped variables. I personally agree that global constants should be declared as readonly, but for local ones there might be a use for it even if you or I don't necessarily consider it a good one.

Regards,
Sven

FPC values backwards compatibility. As such a mode won't be changed in such a way that existing code suddenly no longer compiles without good reason.

Also as I wrote to Michael, the use of writable consts is as static, scoped variables if one doesn't want to resort to OOP (and for simple functions that might indeed be overkill).

Regards,
Sven
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Indeed, I don't see the point of static scoped variables. But if you need those, then I'd rather see

var a : integer; static;

or something similar, than

const
   a : Integer= 0;

Const should be exactly that, a const. My guess is that the original "writable const" was simply a bug declared a feature.

Michael.

Correct. I’m now using FPC v3.2 (fixes).
Thank you for making my intention much clearer. Forgive me for I’m not a native English speaker. Sometimes I compose my intention unclear enough to people who fluent in English though my writing is grammarly correct. Thank you again for adding -Sj flag so I could put it in config or command line options. –Mr Bee

Pada Sabtu, 1 Februari 2020 17.45.16 WIB, Mattias Gaertner via Pas2js menulis:

-Sj was added in fpc 3.3.1 (or was it 3.1?) and enables writeables const (default).
Mr Bee wants to disable it (-Sj-) to get read only const.

pas2js supports the directive {$writeableconst off}. It was lacking the -Sj flag.

I added it now.

Mattias

Writable constant indeed doesn’t make any sense, either in semantic or scoped variable. That’s why I prefer to disable it by default. Even Delphi had it disabled since Delphi 3, if my memory serves me right. However, this topic had been discussed over and over since a decade ago in FPC list but nothing changes. FPC still enables it by default both in Delphi and FPC mode.

–Mr Bee

Pada Sabtu, 1 Februari 2020 19.30.38 WIB, Michael Van Canneyt menulis:

Indeed, I don't see the point of static scoped variables. But if you need those, then I'd rather see

var a : integer; static;

or something similar, than

const
  a : Integer= 0;

Const should be exactly that, a const. My guess is that the original "writable const" was simply a bug declared a feature.

Michael.