On 12/30/1999 at 12:30 AM [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
{{Evaluating Simple Values
Simple values just evaluate to themselves. Nothing special happens. The
value is simply returned. For instance, if at the prompt you type:
}}
How about
{{
Evaluating Simple Values
Every message you send to REBOL is evaluated, including simple values,
like 1 or "abc" or [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you use a value like these in a
script, or at the REBOL prompt, REBOL figures out what kind of value it
is, and returns the value as a result. For instance, if at the prompt
you type:
}}
/snip
{Evaluating Blocks
Blocks are not normally evaluated. They are normally treated as data.
}}
and
{{
Evaluating Blocks
When the message you send to REBOL is a block, at first REBOL treats it
as data, or a single value.
}}
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 12/30/1999 at 12:30 AM [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi Ladislav,
You wrote:
>1) In the rebol22-draft-manual\expevaluation.html one can read:
>
>{{
>Evaluating Simple Values
>Simple values just evaluate to themselves. Nothing special happens.
The
>value is simply returned. For instance, if at the prompt you type:
[snip]
>One is immediately tempted to draw:
>
>(i) Rebol blocks, lists, hashes, strings evaluate to themselves.
[snip]
>4) In the rebol22-draft-manual\expevaluation.html one can read:
>
>{{
>Evaluating Blocks
>Blocks are not normally evaluated. They are normally treated as data.
[snip]
That looks like a problem all right. As a stopgap measure, maybe the
wording
of the second quote could be changed to "Blocks are not normally
evaluated as
code," or maybe, "The contents of blocks are not normally evaluated."
I think there's also a problem with the implication given that you can
simply
"type in" a value at the prompt. Unfortunately, this is really at the
beginning level, and it's important not to put off the reader with a
technical description of REBOL parsing the input. Perhaps something
like
this:
When you type in a simple value at the prompt, REBOL recognizes what
kind of value it is from the characters that you typed, and returns
that value.
I tried to word this so that the reader will both get the idea that
communicating with REBOL is easy, but also get a hint that REBOL is
doing
something complex, and that the returned value is really something
different
from what was actually entered at the prompt.
What do you think?
Eric
