EProgrammerNotFound exception in Delphi?

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

EProgrammerNotFound = class(Exception);

• Is this simply an easter egg or something serious?


• When should this exception be raised?


• Does it also exist in Delphi Prism and/or Free Pascal?

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Q: Is this exception class still declared in Delphi (currently XE7)?
A: Yes, and it is even documented!

Nonstandard way to indicate software faults.

You can use EProgrammerNotFound as an alternative to indicate software
faults detected at run time.

Answer

It is just the result of a long day and we had gotten a little giddy. For many, many years (ever since I'd been on the team), we'd always joked about replacing some error message in the compiler for one of the most common errors with a similar message. Internally we've always joked and poked fun at different things and people (mostly on the team itself). If you don't have a sense of humor, you're destined to an early grave.

It was a simple conversation;

"Oh, you should have raised the EProgrammerNotFound exception in that function."
"LOL! We should add that exception and see who notices."
"I wonder how much speculation there will be about why it is there?"

So, I guess all I can say is, "You've all played right into our hands ;-)... Buwahahaha! pwned!"