Time for a good fpHistory story...

[Barry Wiseman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Schwartz-PC Support & Services" <mschw at athenet.net>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 10:35 AM
Subject: RE: Time for a good fpHistory story...


>> GCC Consulting wrote:
>> Can someone share why the word "dummy" was chosen rather than "smart" or
>>   "intellegent"? Epecially since variables can be just as smart as a
>> field code.
>> Surely it just didn't happen by default, or for the lack of a better 
>> word.
>> --
>> Walter
>
> I would have preferred "disappearing" or "temporary" fields, because
> they disappear from record to record.  But then fPtech came up with global
> dummy fields, which didn't disappear from record to record.  Perhaps
> "programmer assignable, lettered, not numbered, transient, except if you
> make them global, variables" would work better than "dummy", but then the 
> fP
> docs would have to be about twice as long as they are.
>
> If Howie can remember back over 20 years to when he decided to call
> them "dummy", this might make an interesting topic.  But, like everything
> back then, I doubt that Howie had any visions of anybody asking such a
> question over 20 years later.
>
> Mike Schwartz

Coming from the TRSDOS versions of Profile, which had no procedural
processing language and no data objects other than those found in the map of
the current file, it seemed very logical and intuitive to all of
us at the time to refer to these programmer-generated fields as "dummy"
fields, as opposed to the "real" fields that had been available in Profile
all along.

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 Barry Wiseman                           barry AT gensoftdes.com
 Genesis Software Designs, Inc.            Voice: (212) 889-9191
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