Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!uwvax!astroatc!vidiot!brown
From: brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: PostScript question (help needed)
Message-ID: <342@vidiot.UUCP>
Date: 20 Dec 89 17:59:18 GMT
References: <314@vidiot.UUCP> <129367@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot)
Organization: Vidiot's Hangout
Lines: 53

In article <129367@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> henry%angel@Sun.COM (Henry McGilton -- Software Products) writes:
<In article <314@vidiot.UUCP>, brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) writes:
<
<    *  All good and dandy.  But, when an end is done, the
<    *  current dictionary that was being used is popped from
<    *  the dictionary stack and its information is lost forever.
<
<It doesn't work that way.  The dictionary at the top of the stack
<is popped, true.  But that dictionary is still around, to be used
<again, if you wish, by doing another begin.  And the things you
<defined in that dictionary are still in there.
<
<None of the books say that the `information is lost forever'.
<
<The Red Book says that end:
<    `pops the current dictionary off the dictionary stack'.
<
<The Blue Book says:
<    `Once the new dictionary is popped from the dictionary stack,
<     the values for names defined within the context of this
<     dictionary will no longer be found', etc, etc.
<
<I don't read either as stating that the values are gone forever.

Well, I did.  Why, because it didn't say in the same area of the book that
if the dictionary name is used again, that the original definitions are also
still there.  To me, "will no longer be found" means just that.

This points out a major problem with manuals.  The people that write them
know what is happening, but they just can't get it all on paper.  They (Adobe)
should have started another paragraph in the same section that says BUT....
I look toward a manual to tell me how it works, not a lesson in how to read
between the lines.

<    *  to a page/section in one of the manuals that does
<    *  explain this completely?
<The Red Book.

I have looked at that read book, but never got the info described from it.
Adobe also used the word popped when describing taking the currently dictionary
off the stack.  OK, every microcomputer chip that I have programmed loses any
data that is popped off of a stack, unles you move it somewhere else.  I can't
find in the red book where it says that when the current dictionary is popped
of the stack it is actually saved somewhere (like VM). 

I just feel that it could have been explained better in the books.

Thanks for the explanation and the example, it is appreciated.
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