Inconsistent Behavior of Lists

[Alex Tweedly]

At 22:40 15/09/2004 -0500, J. Landman Gay wrote:

>Except in other xtalk languages, including HyperCard where the custom 
>started.  ;)
>
>"Items" are everything in between commas (or whatever the current 
>delimiter is.) That includes carriage returns too.

but with one exception:

There can be a blank item between item delimiters
     "dog,,cat"     --  three items first is dog, second is empty, third is cat
or between the start of string and the first delimiter
     ",dog,cat"     --  three items first is empty, second is dog, third is cat
BUT there can't be a blank between the last item delimiter and the end of 
string
     "dog,cat,"      -- only two items, first is dog, second is cat

I still think this is inconsistent .... though Rob Cozen's description 
(drawing the analogy with lines and cr placement) helped a lot.

-- Alex.