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From: schanck@harmonica.cis.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Schanck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: What is IDEAL mode in Borland Turbo Assembler?
Message-ID: <34246@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 8 Feb 89 10:46:42 GMT
References: <20260@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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Reply-To: Christopher Schanck <schanck@cis.ohio-state.edu>
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In article <20260@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) writes:
>I ran across an assembler source file -- apparently written for the
>Borland "Turbo Assembler" (TASM) -- which used an assembler directive
>"IDEAL".
>
>What does "IDEAL" mean in the Turbo Assembler?  (I don't have TASM,
>and since I do have MASM 5.1, I have not been planning to get TASM.)

from an article in the latest Byte:
"Borland has also made an effort to rationalize MASM's syntax. The .IDEAL
directive invokes "ideal mode." If you use this mode, you trade away MASM
compatibility for improved readability ... [examples, including the
PROC problem you cite, in which the reviewer agrees with you]

... The nicest thing about the ideal mode is that it lets you use the same
identifier in more than one structure. ..."

and so on. The conclusion drawn by the reviewer is that the ideal mode
will be a help to beginners. But it will allow source that MASM will loathe.
On the other hand, it is the only assembler which can which handled
everything it threw at it without a hiccup.

Chris

-=-
"I do not THINK in regular expressions, and I am not NP-complete!"
--- Christopher Schanck, occasional human being.
schanck@.cis.ohio-state.edu