More on fP 6.0 features

[Fairlight]

When asked his whereabouts on Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 07:57:25AM -0400,
Brian K. White took the fifth, drank it, and then slurred:
> 
> I knew exactly what you meant. My point, which I beleive you got so this is 
> not strictly necessary, was just that it's probably going to be an annoying 
> source of namespace clutter to have a base64 function when there are lots of 
> ways to encode data and it'd be a mess to try and make functions for all of 
> them, but a single "encode" function that takes as one of it's options the 
> type of encoding makes a lot of sense, and base64 can simply be one of the 
> things it knows how to do, and the list can grow over time as new things are 
> invented or become popular.

And I'd agree with you--except that MD5 passwords fall into encrypt(),
and don't even fall into MD5 digest format, I believe--while base64
encoding is really an encoding issue.

It just needs two function:  encrypt() and encode()

> I didn't want to scare developers away with a big project, so I stressed the 
> acceptability of a skeleton function that has a few easy encodings at first 
> and more encodings can be added to it one or more at a time at their 
> leisure. :)

Understood.  I just figure if you're going to ask, put the bigger picture
out there so it can be fully evaluated as to usefulness.  It's not as
useful to add something for one alternative encoding or encryption.  If you
tackle several at once and it's a broader-scope issue that says, "We need
to be able to handle all these different formats," then it's more
compelling a need, and you're more likely to get it.  No decent developer
should be scared off by the details--they can always scale it back if they
-need- to, but the important thing IMHO is to make a compelling case in the
first case.

mark->
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