Re: [Linuxsampler-devel] [linuxsampler] Latest CVS Commit

[Rui N. C. <rn...@rn...>]

Hi Simon,

>
>>[...] What about that all-upper-case restriction for command keywords?
>> And the parameter key names _must_ be capitalized or sort of.
>>
> My suggestion was that "key names _must_ not match keywords" be the only
> rule - its sufficient - and that key names be mixed case by convention,
> rather than by law.
> That would allow for the occasional upper-case name where it made sense,
> eg for acronyms (still use ALSA rather than Alsa).
>

Agreed.


> The keywords are all upper case because... thats just the way they are.
> Its not a rule exactly (or IMHO shouldn't be) its simply the convention
> that was chosen/adopted.
>
> (FWIW I don't particularly like the upper case keywords because
> 1) its less readable,
> 2) its less typeable,
> 3) there's no need to shout, and
> 4) it isn't 1976 any more.
> But its not my place to rework the protocol according to my personal
> tastes/prejudices, especially when I lurked my way through the first
> eight drafts and am not involved in the software at either end of the
> link. So I'm just offering what help I can to make the parser work at
> all).
>
>>Isn't it too restrictive? I'd rather have LSCP case insensitive al
>> together.
>>
> There's not much advantage in making the protocol case insensitive. Its
> not like the software at either end is going to forget to press the
> shift key.
> More likely it would fail to match an oddly cased key name because
> someone forgot ToUpper().
> OK, some people might need to type LSCP by hand, but with a consistent
> set of conventions it shouldn't be too hard for them to get it right.
>
> The disadvantages of case insensitivity are
> 1) extra work in the lexical analyser and
> 2) extra opportunity for name/keyword clashes: It would no longer be
> possible to use the key name "Channel" because it would now clash with
> the keyword "CHANNEL".
>

I surely understand about increased complexity for the lexical analyzer,
but my complaints, or so to speak, were exactly about this clashing issue.

Beware, ignorant's questions follows :)

How can it be that a parser/syntax design is such that it can't resolve
around distinguishing a keyword from a parameter key name? In my humble
POV the position within the phrase would suffice to that.

Is it a lex/yacc limitation or what, that a keyword is always taken
literally, prioritary and unconditianally independant from where it occurs
whithin a parsed sentence?

Anyway, I can live with it. I only wish to know better.

Finally, please forgive my not-so-good english, eheh, I hope you're not
using a lex/yacc combination to read this :)

Cheers.
-- 
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rn...@rn...