assign by reference - another comment

[David Vaughan]

On Sunday, March 24, 2002, at 04:58 , Rob Cozens wrote:

> David, et al:
>
> A "post send" thought:

Rob

A couple of thoughts:

Your first example of despatching a script to modify an existing stack 
is not to the point. Of course that is useful but it is utterly doable 
without resort to handles and pointers or to code which meaningfully 
modifies itself at runtime. This forum has many examples of people being 
given scripted ways of doing modifications to multiple instances of 
objects in their stacks, which is in the same vein, and scripted 
modification of client apps is a technique I have used in past years 
when I distributed software.

I originally wrote "(I presume)" after the reference to irony but 
deleted it as I found it difficult to believe you were serious at the 
time. I understand now that you were and see desirable benefits in 
coding power. OK.

My point, however, had little to do with whether or not we are 
discussing powerful programming mechanisms. I said they were and was 
careful to point out my own familiarity and pleasure at using them. 
However, my day job includes finding out why $MM projects are off the 
rails and trying to fix them both technically and commercially, and the 
techniques you are describing are not industrial strength, are not 
tolerable in enterprise software development. This is the history of the 
last 20 to 30 years of software development tools. Go ahead and use them 
for a stack, debug the hell out of it and you will probably have a very 
sweet application to offer. Just please don't tell me that this is the 
the way we should present as a standard set of development tools or 
techniques.

This is a philosophical disagreement, not a technical one so for my part 
I shall let it slide fairly soon. I always appreciate your comments.

regards
David

> Rob Cozens
> CCW, Serendipity Software Company
> http://www.oenolog.com/who.htm
>
> "And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;
> Who are a little wise, the best fooles bee."
>
> from "The Triple Foole" by John Donne (1572-1631)
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