1. Fwd: Re: Shrouding
I am forwarding this to the list because it explains in clearer terms than
I could the concept under discussion:
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: Re: Shrouding
From: "Everett L.(Rett) Williams" <rett at gvtc.com>
To: Irv Mullins <irvm at ellijay.com>
Irv,
> I believe that adding 'clear text' comments to the start of an otherwise
> shrouded file is an excellent one - distribute one file instead of two,
> and your docs can never get out of sync with your library.
>
> Probably there is a technical reason why Rob can't do this:
> I think Euphoria looks at something (the first few bytes, perhaps) of
> each file when it is included, and ships it off to the 'deshrouder'
> routine if necessary. Probably, once a file is determined to be in plain
> text, i.e. a readable include file, it goes straight to the interpreter.
>
> Maybe it would require a complete re-design of the interpreter to make
> it smart enough to handle mixed files.
All these proposals go in the negative direction, and therefore need to
think about whether shrouding or scrambling are needed, or both. Why
not use "reveal/end reveal". The meaning is unmistakeable, and it does not
matter whether the file is shrouded or shrouded and scrambled, it still
means
the same thing...reveal the following to all eyes. Add this to block
comments,
and you would have a good combo. Line by line comments bother me,
because if the language is straightforward and your variable naming choices
are clear, individual lines of code should need very little commenting. On
the other hand, block commenting is almost always needed to establish the
intent and logic of a piece of code. Having a simple method to create block
comments, other than preceding every line with "--" would be a major
improvement to readability in the language.
Everett L.(Rett) Williams
rett at gvtc.com
>
