On 21 August 1998, David W. Tamkin <dattier(_at_)Mcs(_dot_)Net> wrote:
Been meaning to send this ...
[...]
3. John wanted a way to deem a recipe matched as soon as the score
became positive to make for easier ORing. I'm not so sure that that's
the way to do it, as later recipes might make it zero or negative.
Rather, this is what I'd like to see (or dream of seeing, since I'm
guessing it would mean major code bloat): an `o' [for "or"] or `d'
[for "disjunction"] flag -- please don't make it capital O because so
many newbies type ":O" instead of ":0" -- that would make the logic
work like this:
[...]
Ok, how about this:
4. A more normal syntax: the _usual_ logical operators, the _usual_
arithmetical operators, the _usual_ control constructs (if-then-else,
do, while, break, continue, maybe switch too), the _usual_ {} grouping,
the _usual_ string functions, the _usual_ regexp matching rules. The
_usual_ free format newline handling. Something not unlike awk. Keep
also the _usual_ operator precedence and associativity rules, and it
will look familiar to everybody.
Code bloat? If you insist, you can make it just as obfuscated as
it is now, and most people will think it's clever coding, not bloat.
Efficiency? Just compile everything to bytecode (better yet: to ASTs),
and voila, you get something _much_ more efficient than what you have
now.
But, well, this is probably not going to happen --- so just ignore
my rambling...
Regards,
Liviu
--
Dr. Liviu Daia e-mail: daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro
Institute of Mathematics web page: http://www.imar.ro/~daia
of the Romanian Academy PGP key: finger
daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro