On 2018-04-03 10:28, David Bovill via use-livecode wrote:
Arrays as first class citizens? Give them a passport! Arrays have
rights
too!
Need to check if they can be passed as parameters in setprop handlers -
as
in “set the beautiful_Colour [spellingArray] of my card to light-grey”
Heh - okay let me define what I mean by 'first-class citizen'...
A 'thing' in a programming language is a 'first-class citizen' if it can
be placed in a variable, and further being then able to use that
variable to be able to access the functionality of 'thing' instead of
referencing 'thing' directly. i.e. 'thing' can be indirected.
The above example confuses two things - the idea of being first-class,
and the ability to use a given type of value in a given context. SetProp
handlers are defined to take a string argument, as they are backed by a
LiveCode array (custom property set) if there is no handler to call (or
if messages are locked). So that's just a case of functionality which
has not been defined nor implemented.
Perhaps the best example of a language feature which is nearly never
'first-class' (as in, I don't believe there are any widely used general
programming languages which allow it) is types. e.g. You can't do things
like the following:
put integer between 1 and 3 into tIntBetween1And3Type
put tMyString as tIntBetween1And3Type into tIntBetween1And3
Certainly you can approximate this in various languages - you *can*
build concrete instances of abstract base classes (i.e. ones with all
virtual methods) in C++ at runtime if you don't mind a bit of
bit-bashing; but you can't build a struct, or class which is used as a
value (i.e. not passed around as a pointer) which existing compiled code
can used.
Warmest Regards,
Mark.
P.S. Looking at this another way - I'd perhaps characterize the above as
arrays are not 'complete' as values in LiveCode (as in: you can't use
arrays in all places where you can use strings, and would still make
sense), but I would say they were 'first-class'. I'd suggest
'completeness as values' is a more stringent requirement than
'first-class' - and is more that 'code has not been written to do that'
(incomplete), rather than the 'model of the language disallows any
notion of it being possible' (not first-class).
P.P.S. You could rewrite your example as:
set the beautiful_Colour [ the arrayEncode of spellingArray ] of
this card to "light-grey"
Which suggests that arrays are actually 'complete' in LiveCode in the
sense suggested above - it is just you (as the coder) have to work a bit
harder to use them as such.
--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
_______________________________________________
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
