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

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <kegdvc$fgc$1 at iltempo.update.uu.se>,
	Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
> On 2013-02-01 13:49, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> In article <kegbb4$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?
> 
> And my point was that the mistake had nothing to do with the 
> understanding of the operation, but what specific details of what the 
> programmer wanted to do. I can't read minds...
> I had no trouble understanding that he was subtracting strings. But I 
> could see that a long line of "-"-"-"-"-" could make it look worse, so I 
> figured just putting spaces around the operations would make it clearer 
> what was actually strings with just a dash in them, and what was 
> operations (subtractions).
> 
>>> 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?
> 
> SNOBOL to start with.
> I need to check, but I think both perl and python might as well. Trying 
> to remember what other languages I've used which have strings as a 
> rather basic data type...
> 

I said real programming languages.  :-)  While SNOBOL may qualify, perl
and python are bad hacks at best.  Hmmm....  Now that you mention it, I
wonder if MUMPS (aka ANSI M) does?  Now, where did I leave that manual...

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>