[ANN] News Reader Stack Available

[Dar Scott]

On Wednesday, June 18, 2003, at 11:08 PM, Chipp Walters wrote:

> I'm with Jacqueline. I always thought it took the interpreter longer to
> figure out what it's looking at.
...
>>> Has anyone else any
>>> thoughts on the wisdom or otherwise of quoting all names?
>>
>> I believe there is a slight speed hit if you don't use quotes, since 
>> the
>> engine has to figure out whether the word is a variable or a name.

A quick test on OS X seems to indicate that is not the case:

on mouseUp
   local x
   set the numberFormat to "0.000000"
   put empty into field "Report"
   put the long seconds into tEnd  -- throw this one away
   put the long seconds into tStart
   put the long seconds into tEnd
   put tEnd-tStart into tCorrection
   put the long seconds into tStart
   put the highlight of button "dummy" into x
   put the long seconds into tEnd
   put (tEnd - tStart - tCorrection) & " s quoted" & LF after field 
"Report"
   put the long seconds into tStart
   put the highlight of button dummy into x
   put the long seconds into tEnd
   put (tEnd - tStart - tCorrection) & " s unquoted" & LF after field 
"Report"
end mouseUp

Typical results:

0.000025 s quoted
0.000026 s unquoted

I would guess that the script compiler checks to see whether the name 
was used as a variable so for in the script.  If it has, it would 
compile a variable use.  If not, it would compile the same as a string.

If there is a real difference is is one or two microseconds on my 
computer.

Dar Scott