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 CAD / Development / 8445
    Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Travis Cobbs
   (...) Having read the other replies to this post, I feel that--no matter how well-intentioned--putting a lock on new meta-commands is both wrong and impractical. The simple fact is that all LDraw-based development is done voluntarily. As such, it's (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
   
        Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Orion Pobursky
     In lugnet.cad.dev, Travis Cobbs writes: <snip> (...) I like this suggestion a lot. It solves most of the problems we've been discussing about namespace pollution. -Orion (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
   
        Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
     (...) Right. While a lock would be well meant, it just isn't the right approach. (...) Yep. (...) Not selfish in the least, I don't think. If you're doing this for your own enjoyment, why should you be expected to get a group opinion before adding (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Travis Cobbs
     (...) The main reason I suggested the braces is that they make it basically impossible for the text to show up at the beginning of a standard comment line. In this case, they're probably unnecessary, since META isn't exactly a common word. (...) (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
      (...) I understand the point, but yep - my line of thinking was what you just said, META isn't that common. (...) Ok. (...) Yeah. Well, the suggestion is something new - which ultimately should be considered by a standards body, and not decided upon (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Steve Bliss
      (...) Tim, I've been reading this thread, and you keep mentioning this 'Steve' person. 'Steve this' and 'Steve that'. I must have gone through 100 messages by now, and no 'Steve' has shown up. I'm beginning to suspect you are imagining this 'Steve' (...) (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
      (...) ROFL!!! :-) -Tim PS - Steve, while you posted quite a bit all at once, this isn't quite the "shock and awe" I was expecting. ;-) (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Steve Bliss
      (...) I was trying to refrain from posting too many messages on issues that had already been cleared up. Besides, I'm trying to collect my thoughts on the SB for a single post. Steve (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Orion Pobursky
      (...) Remember that it is in the current specification that all META-commands be uppercase. I don't know many people that write with caps-lock on but I'm sure it won't happen enough to be a problem. -Orion (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Dan Boger
     (...) besides, if we add a new linetype, we're breaking LDRAW.EXE and LEDIT.EXE, wouldn't we? (...) I think that's a great idea :) (...) I'm sorry, I can't understand why it's "too difficult" to enter {} by hand. It's on the standard keyboard. The (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Kevin Clague
      (...) As A C programmer, I'm quite adept at { and even } :) A a developer of L-CAD software, I'd rather see the syntax for current meta-commands unchanged. If we were to formalize meta-commands with a syntax change, we'd have to support both old and (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
      (...) Yep. (...) Exactly. I'll make a side note on the { } issue. One of my goals (as Kevin knows) is to see this software more useable and accessible to general computer users and even kids in the intermediate level on up. I'd like people to have (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Dan Boger
      (...) Making LDraw accessible to the average computer user is a great thing! But, as you mentioned yourself - these users won't be editing the files by hand, they'll be using "good, free CAD software". So whatever meta commands they need to add, the (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
       (...) That's the ideal, but we don't have that right now at this moment :-) A good goal to aspire to, and one I'll certainly be promoting among those who are interested in hearing what I have to say. (...) Sure, understood. I still like the idea of (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
      
           Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Dan Boger
       (...) sure, that works almost as well as {}. It's the _lack_ of any punctuation that bothered me there. :) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
      
           Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
        (...) Cool. Although I don't have that much (if any) of a say in punctuation/no punctuation, I could go either way. I still prefer no punctuation, to keep it consistent with the way it's been done before. BUT - can't always get hung up on the past (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Kevin Clague
        (...) I think we cannot ignore the backwards compatibility issue though. What we want is an explicit way to differentiate comments from meta-commands. I think defining an explicit mechanism for comments is completely backward compatible, because if (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Dan Boger
        (...) right. (...) but you just said you're doing that anyway - "if you do not recognize the first token in a line type 0 record, it is a comment". Is adding '{META}' to the list of recognizable tokens an issue? Also, you don't have to add it - if (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Kevin Clague
        (...) The exact same argment can be used in favor of dillineated comments. ;-) (...) Nope. Any program that does not recognize // (picking one as an example) simply ignores it. Just like (META). (...) I don't want to get sidetracked here, but (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Travis Cobbs
        (...) As I tried to indicate in one of my posts much earlier in this thread, I realized after my original post that the presense of the {} would negate the need for a {META} tag. It would probably work just as well with (). The whole reason I (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Kevin Clague
         (...) Ah, I see the confusion. In saying //, what I really meant was "0 //", where // is the meta-command that means comment. Rather than place all new meta-commands in <>, or (), or {}, I'd rather have a token that means "the rest of this line is a (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
        (...) If tags were the way to go, I agree. BUT, ultimately I side with Kevin, just add comment marks, not meta-command ones. I think that option makes the most sense. But as Dan also said, I'm not a programmer who will be implementing this, so I (...) (22 years ago, 17-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Travis Cobbs
        (...) We already have a standard comment prefix: 0. For better or for worse, meta-commands are just comments that get interpreted to have meaning. I think it's unrealistic to expect users to remember to add a second comment prefix in addition to the (...) (22 years ago, 17-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tore Eriksson
         (...) True. That's why I suggested a strong recommendation of using whatever comment prefix we will agree on. Then let's say the future L3P -check will raise a warning for omitting that prefix. /Tore (22 years ago, 17-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
       
            Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Anders Isaksson
        "Travis Cobbs" <tcobbs@REMOVE.halibut.com> skrev i meddelandet news:HBvHFv.1x9E@lugnet.com... (...) This is not at all uncommon in programming languages, take Pascal for example (UCSD-Pascal, Delphi): A comment can be (* any characters except the (...) (22 years ago, 17-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
      
           Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Steve Bliss
       (...) Dan, You program in *Perl*. Of course you think it's good to always have punctuation. You probably think more punctuation == better. ;) Steve (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
      
           Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Dan Boger
       (...) you mean $puctuation++ > ! $puctuation ? $goodness++ : $goodness-- ; ? (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
      
           Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Steve Bliss
       (...) ROFL. I'm sorry, I can't reply in kind. My brain is too fogged. Steve (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
     
          Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Steve Bliss
      (...) True, but that's no reason to have (unnecessary) complications. The computer will understand whatever we set it up to understand. LIGHTVALS, {LIGHTVALS}, 32.6, it's all the same to the silicon. Syntax is for users, beginning or advanced. If we (...) (22 years ago, 22-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
     (...) Yup, LEdit chokes on it, just tried it out using unused line type 9 with text after it. D'oh. (...) I know how to use a keyboard. I'm talking convenience on the part of someone editing by hand. {} isn't necessary, so why add it to the mix? (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Dan Boger
     (...) Exactly because it's not likely to be used, ever, by mistake. Anyone can put whatever comments they like in a dat, right? So if I write a dat, and want to enter 0 METAL RAIL STARTS HERE and typo it into 0 META LRAIL STARTS HERE (which is a (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tim Courtney
      (...) Points taken :-) And ultimately, I'm not going to be involved in making the decision, since I won't be volunteering for the standards body [1]. Just getting in my .02 here while I can ;-) -Tim [1] I don't have the knowledge to discuss some (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tore Eriksson
     (...) I don't know about American keyboards, but at my Swedish kb, '{' and '}' are at AltGr+7 and AltGr+0, and it collides with Swedish special characters in the ASCII table; it has to be set on codepage 850 or whatever it was. I find them somewhat (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Tore Eriksson
     (...) What I mean is: (URL) for example. Quite corrupted and hard to read - even for us who understand Swedish. ;-) I don't know whether brackets will be cause the same kind of problems, but there is a risk. Then a line from a posted part or model (...) (22 years ago, 16-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
    
         Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Fredrik Glöckner
     (...) This problem is not due to the Swedish character set, but rather a problem with the Lugnet web interface. The Lugnet web interface does not support RFC2047 encoded header fields, that explains the problems with the subject line. I have (...) (22 years ago, 17-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
   
        Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Kyle McDonald
     (...) This is all the main idea behind my suggestion for a branch of the namespace to be considered 'open to all' without discussion. I originally suggested 0 APP appname COMMAND but now I wonder if 0 UNOFFICIAL appname COMMAND, or something (...) (22 years ago, 17-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
   
        Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands) —Lars C. Hassing
   (...) I like that. I think a clear indication that a comment is in fact a meta statement is needed. And I find "0 {META} " more distinct than (META), <META>, {BFC}, <BFC>, MODULENAME and whatever else has been suggested. But we're still stuck with (...) (22 years ago, 20-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
 

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