Jason wrote: > Generally dialects and local uses of parse seem to emerge from some direct need. Some job grows really repetitious or lengthy. So a dialect can help simplify the code keep focus to the task at hand.
I agree. I had the need to generate lots of HTML, and I couldn't bear the thought of writing it by hand, and all the tools still did things in a brain-dead manner. So I went smarter and created my ML dialect, which I've described in my earlier post. Then I discovered how to use XML for other things and extended the use of ML to WML and XML, so allowing me to do more. Similarly for my C# code. I write several C# classes and noted that for each class I had to write several support classes! All these classes were intensely boring to write and it was very easy to make a small mistake or three and have lots of defects when the programs were compiled. I wrote my C# classes Rebol dialect to automatically generate these support classes and even the originating class! So now, I don't get errors when I need to change a class or it's supporting classes. I just change the dialect code and all classes are the same in their own way as it were. > Beyond that is the idea of hidden smarts, where they can embed logic and contextual behavior hiding the guts from the casual use. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LittleLanguage Quote: "...the realization that it is easier to implement a task-specific language optimized for that task than it is to implement a general-purpose language optimized for all possible uses." -- Andrew J Martin ICQ: 26227169 http://www.rebol.it/Valley/ http://valley.orcon.net.nz/ http://Valley.150m.com/ -><- -- To unsubscribe from this list, just send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the subject.
