On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 7:30 PM, KHMan
<keinhong@gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/10/2010 9:20 PM, steve donovan wrote:
On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 2:34 PM, KHMan wrote:
Maybe a better question would be, what is an example of a worst-case
complexity version of the original configuration snippet? Working on simple
cases may be misleading.
Yes, maybe 'median' complexity since there are always pathological
cases, as long as there are pathological programmers ;)
At least Lua does not need to drop to a primitive semi-language (like
the C preprocessor) to express conditional evaluation. A mixture of
the imperative and the declarative?
Apparently people like if-statements - but then is it a _configuration_ format?
Good point. That's why I'm particularly interested in the bigger picture, rather than one simple configuration snippet.
The OP says it's for Industrial Automation Devices. (I think engineers will get by with *anything* -- even if it's really wacky -- since we survived primitive PLC programming... :-))
The tendency of the ideas is towards programming snippets in the configuration file. I too wonder how much functionality the file is supposed to embody, and where the boundary is drawn between configuration code and behaviour code. Blurring the line means more effort by users to muddle through the thing. The CompSci part of me wishes for clear code designed for human beings.
There is enthusiasm for exploring such a format, but there seems to be too little that we know (so far) to judge the overall merits of doing such a thing.
--
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
