At 12:47 PM -0700 on 4/10/00, Alain Farmer wrote:
>Anthony: Because I happen to have a good way of
>rewriting the syntax without killing performance.
>
>Alain: Oh! I thought that your main objections to the
>'do' command were security-related. My impression now
>is that speed is the overriding concern.
My concerns about web-deployed stacks have always been (and will be)
security-related. But when it comes to the interpreter, I want speed.
>Alain: Yes, that's what I wrote. I like the idea. I'm
>just a little bit surprised, and I'm finding you a
>little hard to predict.
Good -- it should keep life interesting ;-)
>Alain: I can rant and rave as much as I want, but when
>it comes down to the nitty-gritty, the programmers
>will implement what they want, when they want to, the
>way they want to, etc. We are not collaboratively
>designing FreeCard (all of us) then coding
>(programmers). The programmers are designing and
>implementing, on-the-fly.
I don't quite think that's true. The idea came from a discussion that I
didn't start -- don't remember who did, but I don't think it was Uli
either. Let me check. The discussion on syntax extension was started in
the first reply in the Fundamental Idea thread, and the relevant
portion read:
For the record, I would like to have as much of
FreeCard in stack-form as possible. Stack-based
tool(s) to create Xternals and/or a stack-based
FreeCard syntax editor (e.g. augment FC's parser with
new vocabulary or grammar). The non-stack-based
FC-core should/will be very small which of course is
marvelous in many ways. Small is beautiful, to coin an
ol' seventies idiom.
(can you guess who said that?)
>Alain: An orientation that it sure to please. No doubt
>or insincerity about it. I have not missed the point
>at all. I am just a little bit incredulous,
>dumbfounded, or something like that!
In shock, probably, after the `do' debate.