Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!rpi!pawl!shadow From: shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven T. Corzine) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Dealing with multiple scripting languages (was: Elinating the 'rx' from AREXX) Message-ID: Date: 23 Aug 89 19:52:21 GMT References: <1989Aug8.214011.3351@agate.berkeley.edu> <1989Aug14.015608.21854@agate.berkeley.edu> <4117@sugar.hackercorp.com> <44364@bbn.COM> <677@laic.UUCP> Sender: usenet@rpi.edu Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY Lines: 43 In-reply-to: darin@nova.laic.uucp's message of 22 Aug 89 02:21:22 GMT In article <44364@bbn.COM> cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell) writes: Bernie> Actually, the OS could just set up the file pointer to the Bernie> script file to be _just_past_ the first line, so that the Bernie> comment conventions of the particular program would be Bernie> irrelevant. This I find to be a preferable solution by far. The interpreter gets all the information in that line passed in its argument vector. It should not need to parse out that first line which the kernal interpreted in the first place. On 22 Aug 89 02:21:22 GMT, darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson) said: Darin> How about just using the comment field in the file header? Darin> Most people don't use these, and if they do, they can just put Darin> the magic sequence at the beginning and the comment afterwords. Darin> (Just keep the same syntax, but use an already existing field, Darin> seldom-use field, saving a very tiny bit of disk space) I don't like this idea. Putting information out of band like that is just asking for it to get lost. Workbench's ".info" files are no better. The comment field should be preserved for comments, and not twisted into system use. (yes, you could do it, and it might be reasonable for some situations, such as a simple implementation of symlinks, but I don't like it as a general strategy.) As for the disk space, it isn't worth worrying about. Adding the line to the text of the script isn't particularly likely to push any given script over a disk block border. So, on the average, it won't affect disk space usage at all. Basically, I see using the comment field as being more trouble in this instance than it's worth. Deven -- Deven T. Corzine Internet: deven@rpi.edu, shadow@pawl.rpi.edu Snail: 2214 12th Street, Troy, NY 12180 Phone: (518) 271-0750 Bitnet: deven@rpitsmts, userfxb6@rpitsmts UUCP: uunet!rpi!deven Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.