[429] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Re: implementing 'atomic' designation

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thu Sep 22 10:39:04 1994 )

From: BRANDON@cc.usu.edu
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 1994 08:31:47 -0600 (MDT)
To: COLDSTUFF@MIT.EDU
X-Vms-To: COLDSTUFF@MIT.EDU

< The assignment as an expression question has come up MANY times. When I first
<  became aquainted with assignment as a statement I thought it was a bad idea,
<  but after getting parse errors on if (a=b) more than a dozen times, I have
<  decided I like things the way they are.

If you don't like assignments as expressions, don't use them.  Because they
would exist doesn't mean you HAVE to use them.  As Quinn said, we shouldn't be
telling people how to program.  Assignments as expressions is NOT that big of a
deal.  How about this:  Come up with every single argument you can think of
AGAINST them, and I (and others) will come up with every one for them--we'll
see how things end up.  If anything we could make assignments like in pascal,
which would lessen confusion immensely (namely 'a := foo').

< it totally goes against cold design philosophy. Right now, Cold has the
< advantage of being very simple, making as few assumptions as possible, and
< being consistent everywhere.

except for it makes the assumption of forcing your style--don't be hypocrytical
:)

< I am against this, because I think it's something that should be handled in-db.
< The Cold philosophy as I understand it demands a lean server, and cruft like
< this is totally unnecessary.

Then why did you even bring it up?

BTW, this whole thing with cold theory is very nebulous, AND it is defined by
those who are developing the driver.  Quit ripping on Richelieu for proposing
ideas.  If he feels like doing it, AND calling it ColdMUD--BFD.