On Saturday, October 25, 2003, at 11:07 AM, Stephen Quinn Barncard wrote:
This is the best argument I've seen for global constants. I get it.
sqb
The major difference I don't think anybody has mentioned is that since the
value of a constant is known at compile time, it can be inserted directly
into the resulting object code. So the value has only to be looked up once
- at compile time - whereas a variable always has to be re-evaluated at
runtime. A variable that's got from an accessor would seem to be even more
work because a handler has to be run to determine which variable to look up.
Doesn't this mean there should not be global constants?
If each script is independently compiled, how can the compiler know what the constants are? If it can't know, it can't insert them into code. (I actually have no idea how this is done at this time. Since there is no constant simplification, I suspect this is not the case.)
I don't see how a compiled script can see a constant as other than a special global variable that cannot be changed.
Dar Scott
_______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
