[TCLCORE] Re: modifying generic/tclExecute.c

[Eric M. <er...@aj...>]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, <Miguel Sofer wrote:

> Point (a) implies inlining some code which is in other files
> (tclVar.c, tclBasic.c, maybe tclCompile.c). I have been "copying and
> pasting" in my preliminary tests, but realise that this is not very
> good - difficult maintenance, even if well documented. For instance,
> any change in the Var type may have severe implications in the
> executor, the decoupling is lost ...
> 
> A solution might be to put some of that code in macros in a common
> header file. I kind of liked the idea of touching a single file
> (actually, a single function!); this option would imply modifying also
> the other files ... and maybe making life difficult for their
> maintainers/updaters. I'd rather not ...

I'm generally opposed to using macros for anything but fairly small (less
than about 4 lines of code) functions.  I think overuse of macros can lead
to badly structured code.  Perhaps there are a few small, critical
sections of code that would benefit from this, however.  I'd like to see
what code you are specifically considering modifying this way.

This sort of leads into a related issue with TclExecuteByteCode, which is
that there is substantial duplication of functionality between
TclExecuteByteCode/Tcl_*CompCmd and the various Tcl_*ObjCmd
implementations.  I don't know of a good solution to this, but it would
surely make Tcl easier to maintain (not that it is really that bad right
now) if we could consolidate that code.

I'd like to get some other peoples brains working on this problem; maybe
we can come up with something reasonable for 9.0.

   Eric Melski                            The Other Tcl Guy
   ericm at ajubasolutions.com            Ajuba Solutions

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