From: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com (Jerry Campbell)
Subject: Re:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Reply-To: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com
Organization: Amoco
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 15:52:07 GMT

In article 92090916473059@DEARN,         Otto Stolz <RZOTTO@DKNKURZ1.BITNET> () writes:
>On Tue, 8 Sep 92 18:15:52 GMT Jerry Campbell said:
>> [...] since there is so much controversy regarding this issue I'd
>> think that would be a clear sign that it should be left alone. The
>> programmer should worry about this white space vs. "real" blanks thing.
>
>I think much of the controversy is arising from contributors not being
>aware what was actually proposed (including Jerry, I am sorry to say).

You're probably right, I haven't been following the discussion in detail.
I began to lose interest when the volume of, sometimes indepth, postings went
up.  I'm slightly schizoid when it comes to issues such as this.  Right now
I'm standing in a Rexx programmer's point of view, don't care much about
the detailed arguments of what is better than what.  And from a programmer's
point of view I don't want anyone messing with my data!!  If there are tabs
in the data, I want to see them!!  I want as much control over the data as
I can get.  I don't want an interpreter or a standards committee make decisions
for me.  Gee this poor dumb programmer maybe can't deal with the reality that
the data might include tabs (or whatever), let's "help" him out.  Do that
and you,  IMO, turn the language to mush.  There are always portability issues,
you can't make something truly portable without sacrificing some depth. 

If I've missed the point....  As Emily Latilla said, "Never mind".  BUT! 
I feel threatened that someone is advocating taking control away from the
programmer and feel obliged to object. 

>In any case, a programming language standard simply *cannot* choose to
>leave a controversal issue alone -- on the contrary: the sole purpose
>of a standard is to settle controversies of this sort (viz. how a
>particular feature has to be understood and implemented). As TRL is based
>on a faulty assumption (only in this regard), the standard simply
>*cannot* incorporate its wording unaltered, or without any consideration.
>

I see the controversy as being, I'm comfortable with Uni* let's do it this
way.  As opposed to I'm comfortable with another platform lets do it that way.
Or, I'm comfortable with this coding style or the other (i.e., leave my data
alone vs. why can't I parse a tab as a blank).

>> What if, I really, really did want to discriminately parse blanks as
>> opposed to tabs? Take a Rexx program that wanted to convert tabs to
>> real blanks or vice versa? [...]
>
>In this case you would not want to parse your data into words, will you?
>Hence, the whole discussion simply does not apply to this case. You
>would use positional parsing, or the SUBSTR function, or whatever
>character-oriented (as opposed to word-oriented) operation you deem
>appropriate to get at the pieces of your data; and you would be well
>adviced to use strict comparison operators (even in the CMS implement-
>ation, to be sure your program can distinguish zero blanks from one
>blank).
>

I'd want Parse to behave in a totally literal way, the same way I'd expect
the "strict" methods to behave.  I can't believe anyone would want to take
a basic language element like Parse and make it behave differently than
other character oriented language elements.  Parse should not have an
opsys fudge factor built in. 

>> Please, don't build "intelligent" second guessing Rexx inter-
>> preters.....!   Or standards.
>
>Agreed! But this guideline does not preclude intelligent (without
>quotes!), consistent, standrad-conforming, and usable interpreters.
>Or standards. That's what I think I have proposed, btw.
>

And btw, my comments are not directed at any particular person's views/ideas/
beliefs (although I suppose someone could take them that way if they persisted)
in fact they weren't even in response to a particular posting(s).  Just based
on the general feel of the whole discussion.

>Happy programming,
>                    Otto Stolz <RZOTTO@DKNKURZ1.Bitnet>
>                               <RZOTTO@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>

Ok, I've now said my piece, and stood up for the rights of like minded
programmers everywhere!  Nyuk! Nyuk!  (is it possible to make that noise
with you're tongue in cheek?).  

---
Jerry Campbell   reply to: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com 
Amoco Corp. ISD  SSS/Graphics
Houston, Tx.     713/556-7036