Why him does not use a natural language for programming?

[J. Landman Gay]

On 2/23/12 6:46 PM, Bob Sneidar wrote:

> set foreColor of fld "myField" to blue

I'm hijacking this thread to complain about my pet peeve. The above 
syntax makes me crazy. Lots and lots and lots (and maybe more) well 
established developers use it, it works, there's nothing wrong with it, 
it's fine. But the missing "the" makes me stumble every time I read a 
line like that.

I think it bothers a certain engineer too because he once threatened to 
make the engine refuse to compile scripts if the "the" was missing. 
Fortunately he didn't follow through.

It is inconsistent to allow omission of "the" for engine properties but 
require it for our own. Enforcing consistent use of "the" would help new 
LiveCoders avoid pitfalls. And as long as we're talking about natural 
language, "the" belongs in there.

</rant>

Now that all that is over with, I'll confess that I simply cannot write 
"set the cursor to..." because it looks strange to me. I have to write 
"set cursor to..." But that's the only one. So I suggest the engine 
enforce all "the"s except for the single exception when referring to 
cursors. :P

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com