Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!unizh!schaerer
From: schaerer@ifi.unizh.ch (*)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: Re: Assertions and deferred routines
Message-ID: <1990Oct26.200452.4538@ifi.unizh.ch>
Date: 26 Oct 90 20:04:52 GMT
References: <443@kepler1.kepler.com> <420@eiffel.UUCP> <1990Oct22.181347.6410@gorgo.ifi.unizh.ch> <428@eiffel.UUCP>
Reply-To: schaerer@ifi.unizh.ch
Organization: University of Zurich, Department of Computer Science
Lines: 36

[In a previous posting, I suggested to replace "require else ..." and
 "ensure then ..." by something more readable for humans, and proposed
 "alternatively require ..." and "additionally ensure ...".]
 
[Bertrand Meyer then answered:]

>I would personally be somewhat uncomfortable with a keyword such as
>``additionally'', given the probability of misspelling.

Agreed. I'm just brainstorming. Those two keywords happened to express
exactly what I wanted, but they are somewhat ugly.

>It is certainly true that readability is an important criterion, but it
>is not the same thing as verbosity.

I chose the wrong word when I asked for "something verbose", I should have
asked for "something structurally closer to natural language" instead.

>[long discussion of readability issues]
>
>All this is probably overkill in response to a comment that his author
>described as cosmetic.

I usually enjoy your verbose (:-) and thoughtful postings -- count me as one
of your admirors.

Two more proposals:

  else require ...         then ensure ...         (conjunction precedes verb)
                                                   (parsing problems with am-
                                                    biguous use of then/else?)

  require again else ...   ensure again then ...   (this one *is* verbose...)

---
Daniel Schaerer, University of Zurich/Switzerland