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From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Dealing with multiple scripting languages (was: Elinating the 'rx' from AREXX)
Message-ID: <721@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 26 Aug 89 18:58:03 GMT
Lines: 52
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <1989Aug27.034146.27086@agate.uucp>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes:
>In article <1746@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP> deraadt@enme3.UUCP (Theo Deraadt) writes:
><I find this entire discussion rather silly; being as the Unix way is
><the most flexible. I mean, what part of the system knows better what
><shell interpreter a shell script should be run by, than the shell
><script file itself? Why not just use the #! syntax, and make the kernel
><know to follow the current system path.
>
>I find this statement rather silly; being that just implementing the
>Unix semantics would mean that both ARexx scripts and CLI scripts
>wouldn't work at all.

Why? We can always consider the ARexx method of determining ARexxness to be
'prior art', and not step on that with whatever convention is decided upon.

> It would also eliminate the ability to use ARexx
>as macro langauge in a properly designed shell .... 

It would? I think it rather depends on what you call 'properly designed'. To
me, that means that it can handle everything that is currently available, with
provision for allowing it to handle whatever comes along next, and do it in a
consistent manner. All that is neded to allow ARexx to run properly is to look
for the first two non-whitespace characters in the file. If they are '/*', pass
it to ARexx.  It works that way now.  If it happens to be a C source code file,
ARexx will figure it out pretty quick, just as it does now.  We just have to
reserve '/*' as the magic cookie for ARexx.  No big deal.

>You could solve the problem by making '#' a comment in all scripting
>languages. This is rather ugly.

#    is the '# any uglier than
//   any other comment
REM  delimiter? Personally,
/*   I think that the lack of  */
C    a 'single line comment'
*    in C and Pascal is a real failing,
;    not to mention the way some
(*   braindead compilers prohibit *)
--   nesting comments. Don't you
(    think that ugly is in the    )
%    eye of the beholder?         %


-larry

--
The Mac? Oh, that's just like a computer, only slower.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
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