Is Transcript's English orientation a plus or minus?

[Dar Scott]

on soapbox

On Sunday, February 8, 2004, at 07:29 PM, Frank Leahy wrote:

> >Removing exceptions can simplify xTalk and enhance its power.
>
> You mean try/catch/end try?  It might simplify things, but it sure 
> won't enhance anybody's power.  There are numerous places that common 
> functions can fail in xTalk (e.g. set the fileName of an image to an 
> alias file -- oops)  Since xTalk has no consistent failure reporting 
> mechanism, exceptions are really the only reasonable way to handle 
> exceptional conditions without having tons of if statements littered 
> throughout your code. (What, you mean you don't handle error 
> conditions?  Shame on you :-)

My error.  Wrong word.

I mean all the places where the semantics has an "except" or "but not" 
or "is limited to" or "must already" or similar.

For example, a key in an array cannot contain a NUL character.  Also, 
the second delimiter of combine cannot be NUL.  (The TD also disallows 
others.)

Can I use an expression for a property name?  Is the answer yes, no or 
'um, that's a little complicated'?

I do use 'try', even though I write perfect code.  ;-)  Of 'catch' and 
'finally' can you remember which ones are optional and which ones are 
required?

You can use an array variable as an parameter in a function 
application.  You can even return it as the value of the function if it 
is put directly into a variable.  But you cannot return an array from a 
function application that is an expression that is a parameter for 
another function.  eg:  put fixArray( fixArray( arrayX ) ) into arrayY

If I 'put 2 into x', the variable x might be made for me, but 
matchText() and decodeBinary() (according to the TD) need the variables 
to be already created.

This goes on and on.

Dar Scott

end soapbox