procmail
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Re: syntax enhancement dreams

1997-08-27 12:24:35
Terry Jones wrote,

| what i am claiming (and i'll use one of your example responses below
| to illustrate this) is that something like this:
| 
|   if ((A || B) && (C || D)){
|     action;
|   }
| 
| is vastly easier for people to look at, vaguely understand, and build
| upon than your equivalent:
| 
|   :0
|   * !A
|   * !B
|   { }
|   :0E
|   * !C
|   * !D
|   { }
|   :0E
|   action

If exposure to C or something similar has already made them familiar with
"&&" and "||" and "{ ... ;}" while total strangeness from procmail has kept
them from ever learning what ":0E" means, then yes.

My sole argument for advocating the latter form is to save forking perl when
you're already running procmail.  (My principal reason for using it myself is
to avoid tackling perl, but that's personal.)

| what i am claiming that given a set of examples of each, that the perl
| would be simpler for novices to understand, copy, and modify ... 

... under the assumption that these novices are not novices in C.  If you're
already fluent in Spanish, Catalan is a lot easier to learn than Cantonese.

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