[Lazarus] Passing properties as var paramatars (was: Delphi editor clone)

[Marco van de Voort]

On Sun, Nov 08, 2009 at 12:17:35AM +0000, Howard Page-Clark wrote:
> > > On Sat, 7 Nov 2009, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> > >> This is not orthogonal. VAR parameters are generally updated
> > >> instantaniously. By delaying the update over a temp variable you break
> > >> another aspect of the VAR parameter.
> 
> I don't understand 'not orthogonal' in this sentence. What meaning does
> orthogonal have apart from 'being at right angles to' ?

I'm not entirely sure where the phrase comes from (see also Mehmet), but I
guess it has something to do with the axises in a Carthesian coordinate
system, and from there dimensions (point,length,area,volume etc). 
A translation along one axis doesn't change the other in classic geometry.

Assume it came to indicate absence of side-effects from there.