X11 bashing

[Rich Berlin]

In article <BARNETT.91Apr25102541 at grymoire.crd.ge.com>, barnett at grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) writes:
|> In article <.VYA9Y1 at xds13.ferranti.com> peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> 
|> >   You young kids today. You're spoiled by all this memory! 
|> 
|> Watch it! I cut my programming teeth on a Intel 4004 microprocessor!
|> 
|> >Use whitespace and comments!
|> 
|> I know how to use whitespace and comments. But does everyone else?
|> 
|> Sometimes white spaces are detrimental. Having the entire
|> routine on a single page is better than putting each command on it's
|> own line and making the code three times longer. 
|> There are advantages to the lisp syntax. At least you can
|> parse the code without knowing each command and without REQUIRING
|> comments to document the operand stack.
|> 
|> Forth/PostScript has some nice points as an interactive language.  I
|> wonder if some special characters can be added to the NeWS/PostScript
|> language using a different font that allows a programmer to insert
|> special brackets that have no function but do allow vi/emacs and the
|> programmers to balance the stack parameters.
|> --
|> Bruce G. Barnett	barnett at crdgw1.ge.com	uunet!crdgw1!barnett


You could always define a couple of postscript "commands" which do
nothing, e.g.

/|- {} def
/-| {} def

and then mark things like this:

|- 100 50 8 [1 0 0 -1 0 900] {<00>} false 3 -| colorimage

Since all of the paren and brace type characters in PostScript
are self-delimiting, you can't use them and are therefore forced to go
to strange 2-character combos like the ones I suggested.


You mentioned in an earlier message that you'd prefer prefix notation,
and I think that would be possible if you defined -| properly and used
the literal name (e.g. /colorimage) rather than the executable form.
Youq should probably stick to postfix notation, however; defining -|
so you could put the "colorimage" behind the operands would be messy
to program and pretty slow.  Aside from that, redefining the language
in such a fundamental way is hard on anyone who has to come along
afterward and read it.

-- Rich