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Date:Mon May 14 22:04:16 2001 
Subject:Re: filenames, argument list separators + gsl extension 
From:cglur 
Volume-ID:1010514.09 

> Space being a valid char in an identifier, seems absurd.

kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com  wrote:

> Why?
> 
> Spaces occur in identifiers all over the place. Here are some examples.
> 
>     Christopher James Dollin
>     Windows 95
>     Red Hat Linux
>     The Sorceress and the Cygnet
>     Thief of Time
>     A Song for all Seasons
>     Shifting Sands
>     For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night
>     Spice manual
>     Chatty guide
>     Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
>     Samual @kins

<side track>: Is this part of the "get computers to understand people" idea ?
The "more natural/human" is the WRONG goal; motivated by US-Disney
and "the little man in the box syndrome".   "He almost understands me".
Increased knowledge, reduces the apparent chaos/complexity of the
universe into fewer rules/principles.  Progress = simplification.

Pop-11 has taken the wrong route (too late now) in having multiple
syntaxes to say:
    IF GreenBall NOT broken THEN ....
The limitation on computing is the complexity, which overwhelms humans.
Greater freedom (more "natural") equals greater complexity.
Lets not be driven/misled by MS-marketing   <end side track>

> > My prefered OS (oberon) allows only alpha-numeric and 'period' for fileIDs
> 
> Oh, spit. That's ridiculous. No hyphens, underbars, plus signs, etc? I
> think that's taking things to extremes I only dream (badly) of. I presume
> you're allowed arbitrarily long filenames?
MaxChar=31; I'm constrained by physical realities. eg. CharLenPerScreenLine

> > but files of other systems, with 'invalid' chars can be read,
> >    by quoting. eg:  "c:/o236/file-name.htm"
> 
> So the file-system hadler accepts names with arbitrary characters, you 
> just can't create files with them in? How ... strange.
 I don't know the implementation details, but the native file system is
optimised (life is about trade-offs) and to read/write DOS, Linux-based
files the non-standard "patch" is used.

> > Is this matter related to pop11's failure to detect the missing separator
> > in the local var. declaration, below ?  My understanding is that comma
> > (only) is a a valid separator here ?
> > 
> >     define listify(list) -> result;
> >               vars next   tail;
> 
> HELP VARS says:
> 
>     For the present, commas may be omitted except after an initialisation,
>     but it is recommended that they be used.
Thanks. That reduces a very uncomfortable feeling.
But I find such ambiguity unacceptable in computing.

> and I'd assume it's mostly a backward-compatability relic from the days
> of POP2.
These apparently trivial details cause 'failure'.

> No, there's no relationship between the one and the other.

Aaron wrote:-

> (c) My own feeling is that although the recent discussions of syntax for
> various types of data-constructing expressions are interesting and
> could, if they had occurred around 1970, have led to much better syntax
> for the pop family, they are far less important for real users than
> other "semantic" issues like the availability of powerful libraries that
> extend what you can easily do, the availability of new debugging and
> development tools, etc.

Yes, consider the cost/benefit.  The discussed changes seem to me
(a beginner) to be drastic, hence potentially disasterous.
Inevitably the greatest added value per effort (especially for beginnners
usage) is acheived by mundane tasks - which no one want's to discuss.
eg. "set up a system" (NOT do the job) whereby new users report typos
in the tutorials, which are fixed.
 ...
> By comparison with "semantic" extensions of the above types, I believe
> changes to the syntax of existing constructs are really of marginal
> importance!

Very important, marginal value, hence not recommended to change.
...
> Is anyone interested in forming a collaborative project to provide
> the gsl extension to pop-11???

Are the extensions just mathematical facilities ?
Can you list some example(s) ?

Chris Glur.