OpenEuphoria

Re: built-ins and include files

• Posted by Everett Williams <rett at GVTC.COM> Feb 03, 2000
• 408 views

Feeling a little spacey today, or are you just leaving room for disagreement?
Couldn't resist 

One, some of them aren't very clean or complete, and two, some really are OS
specific functions. Including them in the base would require a really sharp eye
to common functionality for all platforms and OS's. Even though the code
in the base would be different for each version, the functionality would have to
be almost exactly the same. Maybe Rob needs to put in a "plugin" or
"add in" interface for platform specific code to work with the base as if it
were part of the base. Hmmmmmmmm...might solve a lot of other situations.

IO is ugly in so many ways. Since Sun is releasing NFS, maybe all IO
could be written to that interface. Not sure what that would entail, but it is
a well established cross-platform IO standard.

Another option would be a "bound" base which would be essentially
indistinguishable from what you ask for except for the constants...that
shouldn't be a problem after the next release, I hope.

Everett L.(Rett) Williams
rett at gvtc.com

 Bernie Ryan  wrote:

>Why are some features implemented by using machine level
>
>  constants. If there is a machine-level constant for a given feature
>
>  then why isn't that feature just implemented as a built-in feature
>
>  instead of requiring an include file and the use of overhead code in
>
>  the include file. A good example is the seek command why is it necessary
>
>  to implement that feature via the file.e include file. This requires
>
>  the user to use some built-ins and some include files to do standard
>
>  file i/o. This is only one example of a built-in being implemented
>
>  via a include file, there are many others. dll.e, graphics.e, get.e,
>
>  mouse.e, machine.e and etc.
>
>  Using these machine-level constant does nothing to aid the user in
>
>  using, modifying or extending the language. It only requires user to
>
>  add more include files and causes more naming conflicts.

In a phrase, name spaces.

>  If a function has a machine-level constant then It should be built-in
>
>  and not implemented in a include file. The include files should only
>
>  be should be used for user add-ons
>
>  Bernie