1. ?"Hello"&-1

There have been a few releases of Phix now with ?{65,66,67} printing {65,66,67} instead of {65'A',66'B',67'C'}.
Conversely pp({65,66,67}) has been printing {65'A',66'B',67'C'} and I've had to use pp({65,66,67},{pp_IntCh,false}) to get {65,66,67}.
I'm going to flip that behaviour back, and make pp_IntCh default to false - any objections? (I'll be slightly surprised if there are...)

Proposed new behaviour:

?{65,66,67}                         -- {65'A',66'B',67'C'}      \ these were 
pp({65,66,67},{pp_IntCh,false})     -- {65,66,67}               /  flipped 
pp({65,66,67})                      -- {65,66,67} 
pp({65,66,67},{pp_IntCh,-1})        -- {'A','B','C'} 
pp({65,66,67},{pp_IntCh,true})      -- {65'A',66'B',67'C'}     -- previous default 

Obviuously actual strings were and still are shown as actual strings:

?"Hello"        -- "Hello" 
pp("Hello")     -- `Hello` 

(pp() now prefers backticks over doublequotes to minimise excessive escaping)

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2. Re: ?"Hello"&-1

In a tutorial, extraneous arguments is a pain--? is great for that reason.

In OE|Phix you have to show the dual nature of integers|characters--pp( is great for that reason.

The leading argument in puts( and print( is a ''slight nuisance''.

In a tutorial, this kind of output has to be emphasized:

? {65,66,67} 
pp( {65,66,67} ) 
puts(1, {65,66,67} ) 

{65,66,67} 
{65'A',66'B',67'C'} 
ABC 

In a conventional language, print seems to do it all. This gives the illusion that a conventional language is ''easy''.

Tutorial inspired ideas:

  • flip arguments
    • print( "hello", 1)
    • print( "hello", fn )
  • pp( needs positional arguments
    • pp( "hello", IntCh:=True )
  • ''ln'' suffix as in pasacal
    • puts(
    • putsln(
  • write( writeln( as a tutorial friendly cross between ? and pp(
  • output in OE|Phix has some dark corners that needs exploring

You can always create a butterfly effect for any change in a language.

be well
_tom

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