LiveCode 4.6.1 message path and behaviors

[Richard Gaskin]

Keith Clarke wrote:

 > It's clear now that my question, which sought factual clarification,
 > has raised questions of LiveCode philosophy, developer perspective
 > and architecture. There is clearly no single correct answer, no
 > 'unified theory'.

There is a sense of theory about LiveCode's language, but it's equally 
saddled by a richly varied history.

The difference between "send" and "dispatch" is a good example:

IMO (and perhaps most people's) the syntax for including arguments with 
"send" is beautiful in its simplicity:

    dispatch "SomeMessage" to "SomeObject" with tSomeVariable

Send is much funkier, requiring you to send the variable name as part of 
the string being sent:

    send "SomeMessage tSomeVariable" to "SomeObject"


The "send" command first appeared in HyperTalk more than 20 years ago, 
so when it was added to LiveCode the implementation remained the same 
for compatibility.

But once RunRev identified a need for a different message like 
"dispatch", unencumbered by historic compatibility they were free to use 
more graceful syntax.

It might be nice if "send" could be enhanced in a future version to use 
the "with" token to passing arguments, but with so many priorities to 
address this will likely have to wait.

So in the meantime we have one of a few such anomalies in the language.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
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