Why isn't Rev more popular?

Charles Hartman charles.hartman at conncoll.edu
Sun Dec 4 13:37:41 EST 2005


On Dec 4, 2005, at 12:55 PM, Jerry Daniels wrote:

> I have to agree with Sarah. I often want to see if a string doesn't  
> contain another string.
>>>> where I always feel you should be able to use something like:
>>>>    if myVar does not contain "fred"

This would mean adding "does" to the Transcript dictionary. Given the  
complex uses to which English puts that word (see "DO-support" in a  
linguistic grammar text), I think that might be not so much a can of  
worms as a whole dockful of oildrums full . . . It might be nice to  
be able to write "what does myVar contain" and then look in a system  
variable 'what' (like 'it', after all), but it sure would be a mess  
to parse.

This discussion got me thinking about how Transcript does handle  
"is", and I realized they get away with what looks deceptively like  
English-style ambiguity by sneakily including (and distinguishing  
carefully!) "is" and "is a" and "is in".

Charles




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