Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!philmtl!altitude!martint
From: martint@altitude.CAM.ORG (Martin Taillefer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: gadgets in 2.0
Keywords: gadgets 2.0
Message-ID: <1990May8.023925.6578@altitude.CAM.ORG>
Date: 8 May 90 02:39:25 GMT
References: <1990May6.183020.17956@calgary.uucp> <24783@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1990May7.034352.439@altitude.CAM.ORG> <5692@amiga.UUCP>
Organization: None
Lines: 42

In article <5692@amiga.UUCP> jimm@superman.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) writes:
>Hey, I didn't invent them, I stole them.  Anyway, it's nice to see
>you on usenet now, Martin, keeping me honest  ... ;^)

Well, at least you recognized yourself! :-) Glad to be here. I've been
watching for the last few month and have decided to firmly join in the
discussions. Hey, somebody's goot stand up for M2 around here!

>The alternative is to use structures; declare them and fill them
>in, plus specify in a version, size, or flags field just which of
>the continually evolving parameters you are specifying.  But for
>the type checking (and a little space), doing tags via arrays
>isn't much worse.

Actually, when I said arrays, I really meant arrays of Tag records.
With ISO M2, you can declare these in-line no problem. I haven't figured out
the exact syntax I'm gona use to declare the tags and associated routines
yet. I'm waiting for you guys to finish up the includes and autodocs before I
start converting all that stuff to M2.

>Yeah, I think that's the breaks with the languages we use these days.
>At least now, if you get a Guru, you know it's in your tags code ;^)
>Some day Mr. Language will be able to associate a tagged data item
>with its type.

I've been trying to come up with a scheme to allow me to associate
a tag value with a given type. The only method I currently see is to
declare a different tag structure for every possible type. Nah, even that
wouldn't work.

What would be required would some sort of dynamic typing, where the type
info is carried along with the actual data. This would also require extensive
run-time checks. Yuk. This is useful in experimental languages but
won't do us much good in real-life systems applications.

>	jimm


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Martin Taillefer   INTERNET: martin@pnt.CAM.ORG
UUCP: uunet!philmtl!altitude!martint   TEL: 514/640-5734   BIX: vertex