EProgrammerNotFound exception in Delphi?

Question

In Delphi 2009, SysUtils.pas contains this in line 425:

EProgrammerNotFound = class(Exception);

• Is this simply an easter egg or somet

Answer 1

It was introduced in Delphi 2009, still present in Delphi 2010, and recently got some more attention on the internet.

I think it is an easter egg, similar to "EBCAK" (Error Between Chair and Keyboard), and the skipping of Delphi version number 13.

EProgrammerNotFound

• is declared in the Win32 branch of the SysUtils unit, but not used anywhere in the RTL or VCL
• is not present in Delphi Prism
• was introduced in Delphi 2009, so not present in VCL.NET
• has currently (version 3.5) nothing similar in the .NET framework (not sure why, these guys do have humour)

I don't think EProgrammerNotFound is actually meant to be used at all, but since it is there, people will jokingly use it (similar like putting a stray "const False = True; True = not False;" in someone elses sourcecode).

--jeroen