Declare global in called table goes away following lookup?

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: Declare global in called table goes away following lookup?


> On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 05:40:58PM -0400, Brian K. White may or may not 
> have
> proven themselves an utter git by pronouncing:
>> I think we need a new term for one or the other meanings of global, like 
>> for
>> ,g I think it should really be called "persistent" even though it will 
>> have
>> to continue to be indicated with ",g".
>> The long variable meaning for global is really what global usually means 
>> and
>> is more correctly named.
>>
>> Even consulting thesaurus.com I can't find a word that means persistent 
>> but
>> starts with g.
>
> I don't think you need to think of it in terms of starting a word with a
> 'g'.  I personally don't think of it that way at all.  Internally, I think
> of it as a boolean flag that's either there or not, no different than a 1
> or 0--it'll either perform with the functionality or without.
>
> How I think of what it denotes is "temporal", since it's not so much
> a matter of scope as it is in persistancy over -time-.  Since actions
> that could wipe a non-g variable also occur over time and demarcation
> threshholds within it, time is the common thread between everything in 
> this
> context, IMHO.  Hence "temporal".

I agree about the temporal persistence, thats why I picked that word.
But, the flag is "g", and it means "persistence".
Go ahead, attempt to tell me you have no use for mnemonics or that the names 
& labels on things don't matter.

In this particular case I can sort of see what you mean about it being a 
boolean, because it just happens to be there is no other flag that can go in 
the spot where ",g" goes, so it almost doesn't matter what the letter is, 
you can think of the spot as filled or not filled. Except you still have to 
remember that if filled, it must be a g, not a 1, not a true, not not-empty, 
_g_, which is arbitrary, which would be stupid if we didn't know better.

I'm not saying it's hard to remember what ,g does. I am saying it's only 
possible to remember what ,g does because because everywhere else we strive 
to have labels that relate to the contents, and so the occasional arbitrary 
exception like this can be suffered. But that very same statement also shows 
that it is important to strive for meaningful labels as much as possible. 
None of us is going to ever not-know what ,g is or how to make a variable 
persistent across records. And as for meaningful labels & mnemonics, well we 
all also know that "g" IS meaningful since it means global, merely that word 
just became ambiguous many years later. So I'm not talking about us, I'm 
talking about the language itself just abstractly, as a new user would see 
it. It's good to try to keep the weird "stuff you just have to know" from 
acreting.

Also, I hate the way I both look AND sound on tv...
http://www.doublefeature.com/unconventionaut/
So much so I just had to share :)
Why couldn't he have included some of the footage from the night before when 
I was in kickass rennaisance gear playing Mark Graham's "Rufus & Beverlry" 
to a crowded hotel hallway & room party? The injustice of it all.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
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