[Hecl-devel] Fwd: Any objections to a new release?

[David W. <dav...@gm...>]

forwarded with permission

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Zakaria <z4...@gm...>
Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Hecl-devel] Any objections to a new release?
To: David Welton <dav...@gm...>


Sorry for late reply, but I just got back from business trip and
following that we got long weekend.

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 5:31 PM, David Welton<dav...@gm...> wrote:
> I think Hecl should definitely include code to make this stuff easy
> for people - I don't want to just push the phone mapping stuff down
> into people's individual Hecl scripts.  I think it will take some
> effort, and more research, though.  Wolfgang is more of an expert than
> I am in terms of running Hecl on a wide variety of phones, hopefully
> he will have a moment to comment.

Wolfgang, have you coming back from your vacation?
I would like to ask and discuss about your MIDP 2.0 commands.

> I like your code, and think we can use that as the code that Hecl
> ships with.  Like the one I did for Android, I like the fact that you
> can view the source code and edit it.  I also like the creativity.

> I have gone ahead and committed it, but do think it needs some
> modification or at least consideration of various elements.

Please go ahead, tear them apart and make it better.

> Hecl, not being widely used, doesn't have a defined style that people
> need to use, so that means we're also free to define things as we see
> fit.  That said, your code is a bit different than most Hecl code I've
> seen (or written) so far.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but
> since this is going to be *the* example script, it's important that we
> talk about it a little bit.  In particular:

> * The : in front of global variables.  Distinguishing them like that
> is not a bad idea, but I'm undecided whether I'd use it myself.

> * proc's with :LeadingColons - I don't really see the benefit.  You
> know from the structure of Hecl what's a proc: it's always the first
> word in a group.  With the :globalvars, it also leads to a few too
> many :'s around for my tastes:-)

I choose the : prefix to make it doesn't collide with the examples.
First I use __ prefix but they seem so verbose, so I pick another one.

> * Hecl indentation is definitely 4 :-)

I know, but on the phone 4 space is too much.
Maybe we could make the Canvas based editor and make this a non issue?
Any volunteer?

> There are also some things that, while I think they are good Hecl, or
> sensible, need some thinking about just because script.hcl has to be
> held to a high standard, and is something many people will likely look
> at.

> * 'Short' names.  that's very handy if you're editing the script on
> the phone, but less so if someone is looking to grab a bit of example
> code and use it in their own script.

> * Redefining proc makes things confusing.  I think it might make more
> sense to create your own command along the lines of AliasProc, and add
> a comment that it adds a bunch of aliases.

Yeah, I'm just trying to test the Hecl limit.

> Lastly, your code suggests a few things that might be interesting to
> add to Hecl itself:

> * Command aliases.  Having short commands to type is nice, but the
> mechanism you end up using is a bit circuitous, and would be a lot
> easier if you could jsut write:

> alias /alert lcdui.alert

In the long run I would like to make the default command short
and to the point, so we don't even need the alias.

> * Anonymous commands, which you use ':' for (are you a Forth fan?:-).
> That requires some more experimentation, but it's an interesting
> idea...

Nah, just trying to pick a short command.

Here's what I have in mind for Hecl 2.0:

set form [form title: "Form Title"]
set name [text label: "Name:" text: "Your name here"]
$form append $name
set cmd [cmd label: Greet llabel: "Greeting"]
$form add $cmd {
   showmsg "Hello [$name get text:]"
}
$form add [cmd label: Exit llabel: "Exit App"] {
   midlet.exit
}
$form show


> --
> David N. Welton


-- Zakaria
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-- 
David N. Welton

http://www.welton.it/davidw/

http://www.dedasys.com/
Sent from Padua, Veneto, Italy