gnuplot development

Tim Hoffmann wrote:

> # this is a comment \
> this one too \
> even this
> 
> It's not a real bug, but IMHO people would not expect 
> this. 

The way to deal with people's expectations is to write documentation for 
them to read, so they'll know which expectations are correct.  There's 
nothing we can possibly do about the expectations of people who don't 
read enough of the documentation to find "help introduction".

> This can lead to strange errors, especially for 
> windows users (I don't know who else would need a \ at the 
> end of a comment):


> # load settings from d:\data\

Even windows users wouldn't _need_ that.  They could just as easily write

#load settings from d:\data

> load "d:\data\settings.gp"

That load command is actually wrong.  It should be one of

load "d:\\data\\settings.gp"
load "d:/data/settings.gp"
load 'd:\data\settings.gp'
load 'd:/data/settings.gp'

> Anyway it might be reasonable to change this behavior.

No.  Changing syntax from what it has been for decades, to match 
expectations of people who fail to read documentation, is anything but 
reasonable.

Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
 > The way to deal with people's expectations is to write documentation for
 > them to read, so they'll know which expectations are correct.  There's
 > nothing we can possibly do about the expectations of people who don't
 > read enough of the documentation to find "help introduction".

I read this a long time ago and forgot until now. An additional remark 
in "help comments" would have helped.

 > No.  Changing syntax from what it has been for decades, to match
 > expectations of people who fail to read documentation, is anything but
 > reasonable.

Now, that I know that this behaviour is actually a feature, I agree.

>> Anyway it might be reasonable to change this behavior.
>
> No.  Changing syntax from what it has been for decades,
> to match expectations of people who fail to read
> documentation, is anything but reasonable.

comment line continuation allows unix-users to write
executable gnuplot-scripts without the need to specify
the full path of the gnuplot executable:

#!/bin/sh
# the next line restarts using gnuplot \
exec gnuplot "$0" "$@"
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