Dear List Members, This discussion has been very interesting and there have been a lot of suggestions made. Ultimately I do not feel that now is the correct time to change the fundamental meaning of any of the syntax of LiveCode. My team and I have been very carefully crafting the 7.0 release so that existing applications will run and (with virtually no changes in most cases) work exactly the same as before except that they will allow arbitrary language strings as input rather than ones which are just limited to the 'native' character set of the platform (i.e. MacRoman / Latin-1). As Richard pointed out in a recent post, this has been a huge endeavour and if we were to change fundamental syntax then it would make it a lot harder to determine where problems might lie as we stabilize the 7.0 engine and get it release-worthy.
One of the next big projects we will be undertaking when 7.0 is release-worthy is integrating the Open Language ideas that have been discussed and mentioned (albeit in not much depth) before. At this point we will be completely at liberty to experiment with, adapt and even change syntax to ensure it is the best it can be, and the most appropriate. One part of this project will be the refinement of all existing syntax - there will be two parsers the existing one and the new, together with a script translation system that should mean upgrading to the new syntax will be straightforward (and only required when you wish to use the new Open Language syntax in an existing script - you won't have to update all scripts at once, and perhaps never at all for some). This is one point at which we can perhaps correct some historical syntax which is perhaps not the best. Moreover, eventually the Open Language project will mean that on (at the very least) a project-by-project basis you will be able to tailor your syntax environment to how you want it. If you prefer the current definition of 'word' then you will be able to continue to use that - just plug in a module that maps the 'word' syntax to the existing semantics. It is also important to stress just how important the current 'word' chunk actually is in script - it's been interesting to see people go from "we should change the meaning of word" to, "hmmm, perhaps we shouldn't - I looked at my scripts last night and it would be a nightmare to change". Currently LiveCode's 'word' chunk is inherited from HyperCard and is deeply ingrained in the language - it is a programmatic construct which is convenient for numerous things, it is not an attempt at proper word boundary analysis. [ A good example of usage, original cited by Monte, is things like 'word 2 of the name of tObject' ]. So with that in mind, I really do think the only option we have now if we want a more word-like word chunk is to choose a different name for it. This gives existing scripts access to the ability without having to change them in any way, but doesn't close the door to a more radical change in the future (when we have Open Language). The original suggestion was 'naturalWord' to suggest 'natural language' - however that does not seem popular (I could mention 'lead balloon' here, but I think the discussion on the lists speaks for itself). The suggestion of 'unicodeWord' (or variants thereof) I do think would be an incorrect path - the notion of word boundaries is not somehow just applicable to 'Unicode' text, it applies to existing (non-Unicode) text also. Indeed, in 7.0 there will not be a difference - all of the tokens which mention 'unicode' will be deprecated as they are no longer needed for new code. i.e. The idea is that you just have text - word boundary analysis applies to all text, regardless of whatever internal encoding you might need to store it. Another suggestion has been 'wordUnit' - however (to me at least) this just does not seem to suggest anything meaningful. We are talking about 'words' which is something everyone has some idea about - indeed, as has been pointed out, the fact that LiveCode's current 'word' is not really like a 'word' as we might intuitively expect can trip-up people new to the language and its history. I'm not sure adding 'unit' on the end of 'word' adds anything really related to the underlying concept nor helps quantify the difference. Given that we are talking about adding a chunk type that is more 'real-world' or 'true' to intuitive expectation of what a word should be - the best suggestion I've seen so far is 'trueWord' (thanks Richard!). Warm regards, Mark _______________________________________________ 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
