On Jul 13, 2017, at 6:47 PM,Wayne Stewart wrote: > Mind you it took me a long time to discover the Folder separator constant!!
<rant> Now here is a great feature implemented in the wrong way. It confuses a programmers logical sensibility. “Folder separator” constant. It is a “constant”. Constants have a single value. Right? “Folder separator” constant has whatever value it correct depending on the platform it is running on. If on macOS it is colon “:”. On Windows is it back slash “\”. Compile your database. Run a method on macOS and you get one value for “Folder constant” and a different value on Windows. Client side, server side, it doesn’t matter. Runtime determines the value not compiling. But I thought constants were evaluated and resolved at compile time. Isn’t that the way it works in all other programming languages? A constant is a single value hard coded into the program code by the compiler. So 4D Compiler must treat this “constant” differently from other constants. The 4D compiler must code this as a function that gets evaluated at runtime. 4D what were you thinking! Was it so terrible to make “Folder separator” into a function like “Application type”? Or did some engineer have the intense need and desire to see “Folder separator” show up in the method editor as a constant. Damn the semantics of it all! It may look like a constant, but it’s not. It is secretly a function. From a programmers point of view it sure seems like an odd decision to me. </rant> This has always bugged me. I just had to finally get it off my chest. :) Tim ******************************************** Tim Nevels Innovative Solutions 785-749-3444 timnev...@mac.com ******************************************** ********************************************************************** 4D Internet Users Group (4D iNUG) FAQ: http://lists.4d.com/faqnug.html Archive: http://lists.4d.com/archives.html Options: http://lists.4d.com/mailman/options/4d_tech Unsub: mailto:4d_tech-unsubscr...@lists.4d.com **********************************************************************
