On 07/09/12 03:19, Charles Stevenson wrote: > A newbie stumped me: Why are "Q-Pointers" "Q" pointers ? > > The "Q" lingo comes from the dawning days of Pick. > Why was the letter "Q" chosen? > > "A"ttribute makes sense. > "S"ynonym makes sense. > "PQ" for Prestored Query makes sense. PR for Proc would have been > better. > > D3 User Guide just says, > "Q-pointers are used in account master dictionaries to point to > other files." > UV User Ref says, > "Q-pointers are file definition synonyms that point to files in > local and remote UniVerse accounts." > Jonathon Sisk's "Pick Pocket Guide" doesn't help, either. > PI never had Q-pointers. Clif, did Devcom consider it "Q"uestionable?
Seeing as INFORMATION never had any use for q-pointers, I guess that's why it never had them. Bear in mind, all PI FILEs were referenced by a file pointer in the VOC where f2 was the data portion os-level filename and f3 was the dict portion, why would it need a q-pointer? And I've just remembered another reason - PI doesn't have an MD of any sort. Given that f2 of a q-pointer is an account, how would PI find the FILE? PI doesn't have the concept of account in the same way as Pick - an account was an os-level directory and there was no master list. So I guess q-pointers didn't exist because (a) they weren't needed and (b) they would have needed a MAJOR changed in behaviour to implement them (it could have been done easy enough, but it didn't fit the philosophy, and I've always admired PI because of the very clean philosophy). Cheers, Wol _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
