Re: BBC and DEFINT etc [Was: Using GOTO]

<news@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Judson McClendon" <ju...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Who makes the decisions about BB4W today? Could you, for example,
>> decide to implement the DEFxxx feature, or other constructs, yourself?
>
> That's a really difficult question.  There is no formal process for
> agreeing changes to BBC BASIC; the only body who could possibly
> perform such a task is the BBC themselves, and there's nobody left
> there who knows or cares enough about BBC BASIC to do it (before
> retiring from the Cor****ation it would probably have been me, but that
> might have been considered unfair!).
>
> So in practice I make changes to BBC BASIC for Windows without
> consulting anybody except my own conscience.  Having been involved
> from the start, and knowing the philosophy behind the decisions taken
> then, I do feel able to make changes within the 'spirit' of BBC
> BASIC.  As a rule I don't do anything that will break compatibility
> with the older versions (apart from unavoidable issues such as
> variable names cla****ng with new keywords).
>
> Isn't DEFxxx something of an anachronism anyway?  Determining a
> variable's type from its initial letter seems an awfully old-fa****oned
> concept.  It could create havoc with Windows constants, for example!
> How does it fit in with modular programming?  Presumably a library
> module can't take any notice of a DEFxxx in the main program because
> that could change a variable to a different type from that which the
> writer of the library intended!
>
> I think, on balance, BBC BASIC is better without it!

You're right, it was a poor choice. I just used DEFxxx because it was the
subject of the thread. I was really only curious about your change
approval
process. Thanks for the explanation.

I appreciate your sup****t for backward compatibility. But, from what
little
I know of BB4W, there seem to be things you might have wanted to "fix".
One thing that surprised me is the behavior of FOR/NEXT, in always making
one iteration, regardless of the initial loop variables. I don't recall
ever using
a BASIC, or any other language sup****ting FOR, with that behavior. It is
very counter intuitive. A compiler option could address that with no
damage
to backward compatibility. I do see you have added stuff that surely would
not have been in the original syntax, like C's arithmetic assignment
operators
and many Windows API constants, but I'm not familiar enough with BB4W
to know the extent.
-- 
Judson McClendon      judmc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems     http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
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