It's perhaps not a brand new topic, but I floundered again, being confused with 
"ask" and "answer" commands, so I let off some stream.
I was always bothered - and I'm not the only one - by the semantic of these 
commands. In both cases, the script asks a question, and the user has to 
answer. But the "answer" command is viewed as an order to the user, when the 
ask command is viewed as a demand from the application. Two points of view for 
two commands which in fact have very similar meanings. It seems logical that 
these commands should be either described from the application's side or from 
the user's side, and not the actual mixture of both.
It would be (semantically) straightforward to change the meanings of the extand 
commands, but a nightmare to re-actualize old code. So, synonymizing (english?) 
only one of them, solutions could be:

1) if you prefer the point of view of the application:

"answer" could be replaced by "request"-- for a demand needing a yes-or-no 
answer
"ask" -- no change; for a demand requesting a more detailed answer, e.g. your 
birthday…

2) if you prefer the point of view of the user

"answer" -- no change; for a yes-or-no answer
"ask" could be replaced by "reply" -- with something more detailed.

I'm sure that most of you, native English speakers, could find better 
solutions…I'm looking forward for them !

Jacques





_______________________________________________
use-livecode mailing list
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription 
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode

Reply via email to