I don't think I agree. Learning the abbreviated commands may be one
hurdle to learning to read M, but as you say below, not a
particularly great one. One problem is that code is often poorly
written and undocumented (a problem in any language). A more serious
problem is that a lot of existing code is full of idioms like $P(Y,U)
that have nothing to do with M, per se, but require not only
knowledge of Fileman and Kernel to properly interpret, but also
familiarity with the underlying global representation of the files
(not just the data dictionaries)and a repertoire of idioms to draw
upon that can actually be a bit daunting.
I remember once when, in a meeting, I translated several input
transforms and other bits of embedded code from a DD into English. A
manager went out and hired an experienced M programmer to to do this
same work. In a subsequent meeting, we were told that this
translation task was "impossible" (that is a direct quote), so I
finished the job myself.
===
Gregory Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Nothing is as powerful than an idea
whose time has come."
-- Victor Hugo
On Aug 15, 2005, at 8:00 AM, Aylesworth Marc A Ctr AFRL/IFSE wrote:
For programmers new to M it does not take a long time to acclimate
to the
one letter for commands but it would be nice if they were spelled out
because especially in M they are, for the most part self
descriptive, $piece
gets you a piece of something but $P I really do not have a clue.
What makes
Vista hard to read and most old M code is the one name variables
that you
have to look up. Descriptive variable names make reading code, no
matter
what language much easier.
Thanks
Marc Aylesworth
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