>The following is copied from a debate about allowing line delimiters on
>the MetaCard list:
>>put item 2 delimiter ":" of the long time into minutes
>> or
>>put item 1 by "/" of directory into rootdir
>> or
>>put item(":") 2 of the long time into minutes
>A total of five people said they'd find this sort of ability useful, so
>which syntax is best?
>
>The first uses the word delimiter - very clear. The second is shorter
>and feels intuitive. The third is the shortest and thus the easy to
>write multiple times, but is very slightly less intuitive than the other
>two. I can't decide which I prefer (yet).
I find the first, 'put item 2 delimiter ":"' to be far more understandable
than the other two.
The 'by' one seems like a misuse of grammer, although I can't quite put my
finger on why. And, Kevin, I'd say the last is more than slightly less
intuitive! :-)
I presume this would include 'put item 2 del myDel' as a shortened form of
'put item 2 delimiter myDel'? Both long and short forms of this approach
follow general xTalk conventions quite well, and make general English-style
sense.
k
