[Info-vax] Long uptime cut short by Hurricane Sandy

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <kegbb4$ekh$1 at iltempo.update.uu.se>,
	Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
> On 2013-01-31 23:05, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> In article <keeoak$tk0$1 at iltempo.update.uu.se>,
>> 	Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
>>> On 2013-01-31 22:25, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>> On 2013-01-31 20:22, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>> In article <keeb7i$e15$1 at dont-email.me>,
>>>>>      Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
>>>>>> On 2013-01-31 17:38:45 +0000,   VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG said:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> $ filename =
>>>>>>> filenameprefix+"_"+F$fao("!19AS",F$cvtime(,"COMPARISON"))-"-"-"-"-"
>>>>>>> "-":"-":"+".dmp"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah.  Or add the prefix and the underscore into the f$fao, as that
>>>>>> avoids clobbering caracters in the prefix.
>>>>>
>>>>> And tell me how the above is not cryptic?  Just what is the difference
>>>>> between the first dash and the second?  Or the third?  And would anyone
>>>>> normal determine that?  :-)
>>>>
>>>> Maybe it would be more obvious with some appropriately placed spaces...
>>>>
>>>> $ filename = filenameprefix + "_" +
>>>> F$fao("!19AS",F$cvtime(,"COMPARISON")) - "-" - "-" - "-" - ":" - ":" +
>>>> ".dmp"
>>>>
>>>> Ie, remove three dashes and two colons, and then add something at the
>>>> end. (Ignoring what's going on at the beginning.)
>>>
>>> And my mistake, it should have read:
>>>
>>> $ filename = filenameprefix + "_" +
>>> F$fao("!19AS",F$cvtime(,"COMPARISON")) - "-" - "-" - " " - ":" - ":" +
>>> ".dmp"
>>>
>>> That was, two dashes, a space, two colons, and then add some...
>>>
>>
>> I rest my case.  :-)
> 
> Why? Because I put a dash in where there should have been a space? The 
> reason for that is that the space had disappeared because of wrapping in 
> news. So I had a "" in there, and through "hmm, that can't be right, I 
> must have deleted a dash by accident".

My point was if someone familiar with this notation can make a mistake
so easily, how can you expect a normal person to understand it?

> 
> If you find the above hard in general, then I suspect you are not very 
> comfortable with many programming languages either, which have similar 
> type of operations all over the place.

I am profficient in more languages than people have fingers.  I have
been a professional programmer for more than 30 years.  While I have
seen plus signs used with alpha data for concatenation this is the
first time I have ever seen a minus sign used for the removal of alpha
data from a string.  What real programming languages use such notation?

bill


-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>