Transcript and Dot Notation

[Andre Garzia]

Folks,

taking the risk of sounding naive, why can't we deal with objects the  
way we deal with custom props?

for example imagine the following Traffic Light  object with  
properties and methods:

TrafficLight.stopColor             --- Red
TrafficLight.attentionColor     --- Yellow
TrafficLight.goColor                --- Green!
TrafficLight.interval                 --- the interval for the cycle  
of yellow to red, for example 10 secs.
TrafficLight.cycleInterval        --- the period the traffic light  
stays green or red before cycling, for example 45 secs.

Methods:

TrafficLight.go  -- Starts with go.
TrafficLight.stop -- Go to stop....

So why can't we do transcript-ish things like:

set the stopColor of TrafficLight to red

set the interval of TrafficLight to 20 secs

and call methods like

send "go" to traffic light...

This would still be verbose enough to fell like transcript and maybe  
it could address the problem of transforming transcript into a weird  
lingo like language. Although I think that the parser for those  
things would be a little hard...

anyway, Mark should have better thoughts than me on this...



On Feb 24, 2006, at 6:14 PM, Judy Perry wrote:

> What possible competitive advantage does it offer to the company  
> for it to
> transform Transcript into yet another bit player in a very major  
> league?
>
> With it being an x-Talk, it offers certain advantages, such as ease of
> learning/reading, that are all but nonexistant in your "traditional"
> programming languages.  As such, it is a big player in a small  
> league, but
> it's almost completely a league of its own, a league that the  
> company has
> reported it finds profitable.
>
> If, as we've often discussed, Rev is unable to compete with
> C++/Java/dot.notation.flavor.of.the.month because of its very  
> different
> paradigm, how would making it over into just another minor OO language
> make it more competitive?
>
> I've said it before and will say it again:  If true OO is what you  
> really
> want, why not just use one of the bazillion OO languages?  Once  
> Lingo went
> down that route, it ceased to be a learnable language for ordinary  
> humans.
>
> And, as for OO being OPTIONAL in Rev, remember that it was optional in
> Lingo, too.  Only, every single Lingo book on the market dealt in
> dot.speak, not verbose speak.  Code fragments that floated about for
> public consumption tended to be dot.speak, not verbose speak.
>
> Remember the guy who not long ago wrote to the list who had problems
> possibly with case statements and pWhiches?  What's going to happen  
> when
> those new users have a problem and everybody responds in dot.speak?
>
> OPTIONAL dot.speak I fear will end Transcript's natural-language
> orientation.
>
> Judy
>
>>>> .this.that.thatotherthing.IsThisParticularDotSupposedToBeAMethodOrA 
>>>> nObject.Sh
>>>> ootMeNow
>
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