Re: [Brain-list] New ideas ... (and a happy new year!)

[Manuel T. <ma...@sp...>]

Hi Clemens

All good ideas! So this is kind of your christmas present to me :-)

> o Introduce <base>r<digits> style for denoting numbers...
Agreed!

> o Introduce a method that enables me to determine if some object is a
>   native one or not...
Maybe we can have a Native prototype object, and so you can ask:
  foo is: Native

> o Bound methods...
Also nice!

The only problem is that I lately have too much college projects to finish
(it is a sick thing to have more stress during my so-called "holidays",
than during working college days, isn't it? It drives me MAAAADDDDD....).
So I may be a bit unresponsive until the end of my exams in 3 weeks, and
will probably be very slow in doing anything new in Brain...

> You are right! But do I have to use a new Handler instance for
> this. Would a singleton Handler object enough?
A Handler is like a container of exception handlers, so each time you 
have to create a new one and fill it up with the exception/handler pairs
suitable for the case. But you can store a handler in a variable and reuse
it in various places if you want.

> Another issue: I think we really should thinking about some
> nameswitching. Not necessarily for new Brain, but for old one. I never
> liked the idea that C-Brain is version 0.5.2 whereas C++-Brain become
> version 0.6. That is a bit cheating IMHO, as nearly all was new
> implemented. That should deserve an own version-number-chain.
>  
> Perhaps calling the C-Brain a Brain study and let the new one begin
> with 0.1 as it should?
Well when I started I was not sure about what kind of version number scheme
I would follow, so up to mow numbers are a bit messed up, for example
the first public release was 0.5 (don't ask why...)
Anyway from now on version numbers will be as follows:
Unstable versions will go like 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, ...  0.99
and will go like this (not necessarily until 0.99 :-) until Brain is ready
and stable enough to be considered as Version 1.0. After 0.6, which depending
on my college chore load, should come out somewhere in spring 2001, I will
make more frequent releases. So 0.6 does not mean half ready, it only means
unstable release that comes after 0.5. So I don't think this is much of a problem,
I mean other projects have also occasionaly done rewrites/reorganisations,
or have weird version numbers.
On the other hand if we start again from 0.1 without changing our name, 
that might cause some questions. 

But you are right that CBrain was like a brain study :-) At that point I was
happy to do a little language that just works, while now with your help,
we have much higher goals :-) C++ has already helped, by having much stronger
typing, and therefore making the internals much more secure. (I got a lot
fewer coredumps while writing Brain in C++ that in C, but that probably also
has to do with the experience gained from the first implementation).

Everybody do: {|person| person send: :BestWishes} #! :-)
Manuel