On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 04:28:06PM -0800,
ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com wrote:
Without setflag I would expect to see stuff of the form
set "foo" "";
addflag "foo" "bar";
Is the first line strictly necessary? i.e. can you manipulate variables
via addflag et al if those variables haven't been instantiated?
You can but it is beside the point. The issue is that the variable may
have been previously initialized to have some other value.
I would think that you could.
You can, but again, that's beside the point.
Whether or not this savings warrants an entire action is a judgement call.
Having implemented it I can say that for me at least supporting setflag only
amounted to about 15 additional lines of code and one additional table
entry.
I think having extra stuff in the language is more the point than how
hard it is to add that extra stuff. I would also prefer not to have
verbs that aren't really needed.
Implementation difficulty is definitely a factor to consider IMO, as is whether
or not the verb will actually be used. Stuff that's hard to implement increases
the liklihood of bugs, as does having stuff that's rarely used (rarely used
code is often a place where bugs lurk).
This, BTW, is why I'm basically opposed to the proposals to add associative
arrays to the language. Implementation of such facilities is going to be
complex and since it will have to be a separate extension the odds of it
being widely used are low. This is a recipe for bugs, and when you consider
that there are other ways to do all of this...
Ned