Re: [netrexx-pipelines] Migrate OS/2 pipelines to NetRexx Pipes

[<hp...@we...>]

Hi Jeff!

Am 25.06.2022 um 05:56 schrieb Jeff Hennick:
> [...]
>>> Pipeline stage options could use some more, optional, "fluff
>>> words," that would limit the need for external comments/documentation.
>
> Sorry for my miscommunication.  I do NOT advocate for fluffy stage names, at all.

Well, as I misconceived it my comments are completely wrong.

> The additional fluffy things that I do suggest are for pipelines that will have
> to be read by a human, maybe the author or not, some time in the future, are in
> the options.  CMS Pipelines stages can be very terse, which is very good for one
> time pipes.
>
> What I have in mind are like this stage: [RRT view of 'change']

Thank you, now I see, your "fluff words" are 'filler', or more
general 'grammatical particles'. Filler may be omitted without
changing the predication. Yes, I remember, even the HP71-BASIC
knows one or two of those, in execution just NOPs.

Well, the idea is not new to communicate with the machine in
natural human language (which is English in any case, no other
language is more natural and more human, Siri will confirm it).
Fullscreen-CMS once made some promising steps in this direction
(pop window cmsout), and crawled back a bit in next release
(window pop cmsout).

> Now, those of us that grew up on or with XEDIT have no problem with just the
> delimited changeString format, but for "normal" people, having the optional
> words FROM, TO, and FOR make it much more understandable, although they add
> nothing to working of the stage, and I personally would not use them in a
> one-off pipe. They are, implied, defaults, so do not break any existing pipes
> without them.

FROM, TO, and FOR (I suggest also WITHIN and AND) would for sure
make more sense if by using them the sequence of the arguments
would become irrelevant _and_ the strings don't necessarily need
to be delimited strings:

Change within 3-8 and w2.3 for x to a from b  /* got it? */

Nice, but would you please be so kind and fix XLATE first? ;)

Best,
M.