I doubt that anybody is to go say "my code broke" when this is fixed. I understand the collection of odd stories, but LiveCode is for everybody not just the priesthood. I think the issue here is more than unicode; binary data applies.
Thank you for putting up with my mock crankiness. Dar On Apr 30, 2012, at 4:43 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote: > Dar Scott wrote: > > > I am not advocating doing away with arrays. I am advocating doing > > them right. This "feature" (bug) should have been fixed before > > arrayEncode() was created, immediately before if not well before. > > Back in the olden days when people still used Usenet, there was a lengthy > thread in comp.sys.mac.hypercard in which Christopher Watson of the SuperCard > team and Kevin Calhoun of the HyperCard team debated almost to the point of > fisticuffs the approach each team took toward language enhancements. > > Calhoun's position was that the HC team felt it was very important to get a > feature absolutely right before rolling it out, that the syntax had to have a > good feel to it and the feature itself be complete. He noted that many times > the team was willing to hold off on a feature until it met their standards. > > Watson's position could be summarized as, "Yeah, but we ship." > > ;) > > HyperCard died three years later, while SuperCard is still being enhanced to > this day. > > Software that's been around long enough becomes a collection odd stories that > explain the many anomalies it will possess. It doesn't correct them, just > explains them. > > I believe array support in MetaCard predates the Unicode standard. > > I agree that the current situation is less than ideal, and indeed > NULL-terminated strings are the bane of many programmers who now find > themselves faced with Unicode. > > So it goes. > > I know many deep changes are occurring throughout the code base to > accommodate Unicode ever better. I'd be surprised if this isn't one of them, > but there's such a long list it may take a while to address. > > Software is a complex business, even on short-lived products. The only thing > more complex is to be successful enough to survive until your data structures > become obsolete by new standards. :) > > -- > Richard Gaskin > Fourth World > LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com > Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com > LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
