The paradigm of containers and self-referenced names

[Dar Scott]

On Mar 22, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Mikey wrote:

>> We need a word for the destination of "put" and "add".  I think
>> "reference" can work.  In other languages folks use LHS, but since the
>> LHS is on the right side in these examples, that can be confusing.
> generally this is referred to as the "result"

That is new to me.

>> One of the problems with the paradigm is that the meaning of a
>> statement depends not on the statement itself, or the statement and
>> declarations of components, but on its context.
> Ever hear of C?  Howabout Java?  In those languages the meaning of a
> statement can vary with the types of the arguments, the number of
> arguments, or in C's case, where you are in a program.

No, in C the meaning of a statement depends only on declarations in the 
context and its location.

> It's not a
> flaw, it's part of the Tao.  The paradigm carries with it certain
> rights and responsibilities, which one needs to understand.  That
> doesn't make it wrong, any more than polymorphism,
> multiple-inheritence, or the ability to walk right off the end of an
> array in C is wrong.  It just is.

If you want this paradigm, then I suggest you recommend the fix I 
propose.  Or are you really serious about this?

>
>>     If a name in an undeclared value or reference context
>>     is used anywhere in the handler as a reference it is
>>     a container with an initial value of empty, otherwise
>>     it is a self-referencing name or string constant.
> Actually it would be a string literal, but whatever.

You are right.

> What good is a paradigm when people don't know how it works?
> Thus the Tao blog, and the documentation project.  I think that most
> of us that have used HC or SuperCard or MetaCard have a pretty good
> grasp of the behavior.

I don't believe you.  You were not able to answer those questions.

When I ask others from the same tradition, they also assume Revolution 
will behave other than it does.

>> As it is, it is broken.
> I just tend to disagree on this point.  It appears to work as I would
> expect it to, unless I haven't been paying attention to this thread.

I ran dozens of experiments on this.  Empirical evidence speaks louder 
to me.

> I'm going to leave the rest alone.  It's philosophy at this
> point and should be continued in the request blog.

I don't know what a request blog is.

My points were not philosophy but real language issues.

You are clinging to something that is not real.

If you truly believe in this paradigm, then you should work to fix it 
and not try to hand out blinders.

Dar

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