Keith Clarke wrote:
> It's clear now that my question, which sought factual clarification,
> has raised questions of LiveCode philosophy, developer perspective
> and architecture. There is clearly no single correct answer, no
> 'unified theory'.
There is a sense of theory about LiveCode's language, but it's equally
saddled by a richly varied history.
The difference between "send" and "dispatch" is a good example:
IMO (and perhaps most people's) the syntax for including arguments with
"send" is beautiful in its simplicity:
dispatch "SomeMessage" to "SomeObject" with tSomeVariable
Send is much funkier, requiring you to send the variable name as part of
the string being sent:
send "SomeMessage tSomeVariable" to "SomeObject"
The "send" command first appeared in HyperTalk more than 20 years ago,
so when it was added to LiveCode the implementation remained the same
for compatibility.
But once RunRev identified a need for a different message like
"dispatch", unencumbered by historic compatibility they were free to use
more graceful syntax.
It might be nice if "send" could be enhanced in a future version to use
the "with" token to passing arguments, but with so many priorities to
address this will likely have to wait.
So in the meantime we have one of a few such anomalies in the language.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World
LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv
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