Call and Send?

[Jim Ault]

On 12/8/05 6:18 PM, "J. Landman Gay" <jacque at hyperactivesw.com> wrote:
> I've been using xtalk for 20 years and I've not needed "call" yet. Maybe
> I'm missing something.

Well, not really, and I have not put it to use either.  Probably could have
several times.  Just used globals instead.

A "call" statement was used mostly in the concept of multiple stacks that
were not 'in use', therefore not in the message path.  The idea was to be
able to jump to a variety of stacks, then use 'pop card' & 'go back' so the
user would not know or care where he was in the labyrinth.  An unlimited
stack environment is then possible and continuously modifiable, between hard
drives and computers.

The simple 'go stack ref' or 'go card 24 of stack ref' was limited.  "Call"
could actually call a script that was programmed to operate the other stack
by another author, yet use & update fields that are in the original stack.
Example might be to "call" a script in a thesaurus stack, it finds
successive hits using a local script, directly updating a field on the
original card, then get the next word on a list in the original, and
continue without navigation and globals required.

This new handler could 'decide' to go to even another stack, yet retain the
ability to access the original environment.  I think Osmo used this
somewhat.

Students could build a small 'city' of stacks where they could 'call' each
other and be given info that would be written directly to their stack.

Hmmm, sounds a lot like a web browser<-server thing, doesn't it?  Cookies,
cache, java applets...my precious hard drive...oh my.
More than you ever wanted to know, eh?

Jim Ault
Las Vegas