OpenEuphoria

Re: Question about includes

• Posted by George Henry <ghenryca at lycos.com> Jan 26, 2001
• 486 views

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 11:43:19 timmy wrote:

>I'm writting
>a win32lib program and want
>to make part of the menus and then
>the rest based on text files.
..
>One of the menus is a song list which
>the users can edit. It takes alot of code
>and I also have other menus that can be edited.

While I understand the need to write my code in Euphorian sequence (order)
rather than "George's train of thought" sequence or any other logical/conceivable
sequence; and I understand the need to declare anything that I want to be visible
in any other file as "global" - and I DO find it a royal pain to have to
religiously follow the Euphorian sequence, as per Derek Parnell's "soapbox" (in
another reply to this message, sorry I can't quote everything that contributes to
my thinking):

I also am writing a program wherein it is very desirable, in fact as author and
designer of the program I deem it a "requirement," for users to be able to edit
limited portions of the code. Ultimately, I aim to shroud and bind the program,
at which point I will encounter the need to essentially embed a Euphoria
interpreter into my program - which I submit, is insanity.

I very earnestly believe there is an imperative need to allow limited user
programming via unshrouded, unbound Euphoria source files, to be included with an
otherwise shrouded and bound program. I realize this would be non-trivial to
implement, however it should be manageable provided that shroud and bind are told
which entities (variables and routines) the user code will be allowed to access.
The specified identifiers, of course, could not be shrouded. ("Variable and
routine names are converted into short meaningless names" - with specified
exceptions, I propose.)

Euphoria's syntax is sufficiently simple that it is not unreasonable to expect
users, with a little guidance and documentation, to be able to assign values to
variables and make simple routine calls; perhaps even to write simple routines
and "install" them via facilities provided for the purpose. (I mean, facilities
that the originators of large and complex programs would provide to the users.)

Don't want your users cobbling up code using Notepad or their other text editor
of choice? (Hmm, this COULD be a way of initiating zillions of new users into the
Joys of Euphoria. When they see how EASY and SIMPLE it is to write limited
snippets of code, they might become interested in learning more....) Fine and
dandy, and I prolly agree with you, although I think it would be unbearably cool
and *involving* to at least let them read and (believe they) understand bits of
the code that controls the program they're using - without revealing any vital
secrets about the guts, of course.

So let the users do their "programming" via dialogs or whatever cool "visual
programming system" you want to set up, then have your program write the desired
code, to be interpreted the next time the program is invoked - or perhaps even
more immediately, using the chaining facility ("program overlays") that Mike
Sabal previously suggested.

I will see if I can work up a little demo (similar to what my program is already
doing) to powerfully illustrate the value of all this.

Best regards,
George


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