[330] in testers
Probably this can be ignored
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Dec 1 12:42:05 1989
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 89 12:41:43 -0500
From: Barr3y Jaspan <bjaspan@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
To: zephyr-dev@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, testers@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
1) I mentioned a while ago that it would be nice if zwgc would reread
X resources on command (zctl wg_reread_x, because so much of zwgc's
behavior is controlled via resources), and I recall greping through
the X sources and determining that it is, in fact, possible (and not
even difficult). Unless I am crazy and it is impossible, could it be
added?
2) I suppose it is too late to suggest changes the in zwgc.desc
language; however, as the first documentation of it was just written,
this is the first opportunity I've had to comment on it. I see some
seriously questionable designs in the language, and some things that
are just annoying. Here are the comments I made after a first reading
of the man page; if some of these are due to my own misunderstandings,
let me know.
Barr3y
---- snip snip ----
The names lany, rany, lbreak, rbreak, etc. are EXTREMELY
non-intuitive.. even after knowing what they do I can't figure out why
those names were choosen.
lany, rany, lbreak, rbreak, etc. should not modify variables they are
passed. It is easy enough to say set $var = lbreak($var, "foo") if you
want the modification, but what if you don't? You have to invent a temp
variable.
All variable references should have an implicity protect() around
them, and there should be an unprotect() that supresses the automatic
protect. Otherwise, every variable reference really should have a
protect around it or anyone can screw up your message format.
There is no way to get an inputport to read from a port, or to get an
outputport to write to a port (only files). There should be a command
"ioexec expr1 expr2 exprlist" that execs the program "exprlist" with
stdin from expr1 and stdout to expr2. In other words, since you have
ports already, you might as well add the full functionality of shell
pipes (so pipes can be used without having to worry about the shell
interpreting `` or other special characters.)
