On May 5, 2006, at 2:28 p, Bob Hanson wrote:
Timothy Driscoll wrote:
2) We reserve the right to name ANY NEW TOKEN ANYTHING, so whet
if in 10.4 we find use for "src". It breaks your page, that's what.
that would be *extremely* unfortunate, unless it happens in such
distant future that Chime and Rasmol compatibility is no longer
an issue. I would argue very strenuously against this
position. reserving keywords is one thing; reserving the entire
universe of strings is not necessary IMO.
I think I probably said that wrong.
understood; I am under some significant stress here, so I probably
interpreted it wrong as well. all caps is generally accepted
convention for shouting. :-)
Tim, the issue is simply this: It's unlikely that the Jmol team
would know, for example, that a specific user had used "src" (just
as an example). Are we to then consider asking all users "Can we
use 'src' for a command, or are you already using it?" That's what
I mean by being careful with your definitions. Any user defining
terms risks future breaks. That's all I'm saying. I'm personally
recommending tilde (not underscore) because I know for a fact that
it is not used in any Jmol definition, and so that works.
I understand and can appreciate this. and I have little experience
with software development.
but from what I know, predefined terms often can be overridden by the
user without breaking things (perl comes to mind especially, but this
is also true in Rasmol and was in Chime). the term is simply
redefined in local context. then it is the author's responsibility
to make sure their application makes proper use of the term.
hopefully this is what Jmol will do.
You could do anything you want. As your scripts are particularly
complex (and hard to debug, as you point out) it might be
especially prudent for you to consider something of this nature,
where it is 99.9% guaranteed that your definitions do not clash
with Jmol tokens -- current or future.
Example:
A user using Jmol 10.00 quite uses the word "connected" in a
definition:
define connected (hydrogen and within(1.2,oxygen))
We added in 10.2
select connected(hydrogen)
The user installs 10.2 and is surprised to find that her page
doesn't work. "Something is wrong with Jmol!"
Is it? What is broken here? What is the preferred solution to this
problem?
Maybe you thought I was saying you should "have" to use tilde. No,
I was saying it might be wise to do so.
undoubtedly it is my ignorance showing, but I would expect Jmol to
know the difference between a keyword string and a token. for
example, from context? for example, I would never use a defined set
called 'connected' in the context 'select connected(x)'; likewise, I
could never use the token 'connected' in 'select connected' (or could
I?).
I'm not sure what this has to do with RasMol/Chime compatibility.
Does RasMol have a set of definitions that have not already been
added to Jmol as predefined terms? I thought that was a major
project completed long ago.
if my existing scripts all define 'src' to be a certain set of atoms,
and then Jmol decides at some future point that 'src' is now a token,
then all of my scripts now break. all I'm saying is that should be
avoided, wherever possible. in future scripts, knowing this
restriction, I could of course use something like a tilde in
conjunction with define.
I took your statements to mean that any string is up for tokenization
now or in the future. this is the first that I've heard of it and
needless to say, I am quite surprised. this reflects a fairly
important change in use of the define command IMO.
tim
--
Timothy Driscoll em: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Virginia Bioinformatics Institute ph: 540-231-3007
Bioinformatics I im: molvisions
Washington St., Blacksburg, VA 24061
"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits
is, of course, in a state of sin." - J von Neumann
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