As programming environments get more powerful programers get lazy

Phil Davis revdev at pdslabs.net
Tue Sep 23 03:43:23 EDT 2008


Hi Graham,

Graham Samuel wrote:
> Yes, but any explanation of libraries should also include 
> **components**: my recent attempts to employ libraries consistently 
> for the first time (embarassingly this was many years after I started 
> scripting) revealed soon enough that a library in the sense of 
> something invoked by "start using" or similar is, in Rev, a **script** 
> library only. If you want a library of objects, then you just have to 
> have a set of re-usable stacks or substacks which you organise 
> yourself, and which contain the cards, fields, buttons etc and their 
> interactions which you want to re-use: 

Actually there is an exception: you can store images as objects in a 
'library' stack, and when you start using the stack, those images become 
available as icons in your app's buttons. Of course, your app has to 
know their IDs to take advantage of them.

I use this in one product I maintain. It has one set of 9 buttons, but 
several language-specific sets of icons for those buttons, and each icon 
(image) set's ID numbers follow a similar pattern but fall in slightly 
different numeric ranges. So when the app figures out the current 
language, it uses the corresponding set of icons in the buttons. Not 
rocket science - which is why I like it!

Best -
Phil Davis


> a good example is a registration suite for an application, where the 
> user is given a key after paying: the key has to be validated and the 
> new status of the app stored; the look and feel of the registration 
> process will be part of a consistent style which the developer will 
> want to project. Thus most developers will use the same mechanism 
> again and again, so a component approach is the way to go.
>
> I have ended up with some 'pure' script libraries and some component 
> stacks, but AFAICS there is no particular mechanism in Rev for helping 
> with the component side of things - or at least I couldn't find any 
> explanation of that type of re-use.
>
> Graham
>
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:49:00 -0400, "william humphrey" 
> <shoreagent at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I can't wait to read your piece on structure. I imagine it will take 
>> a while
>> to write as you will need a simple explanation on how to make a library. 
-- 
Phil Davis

PDS Labs
Professional Software Development
http://pdslabs.net




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