Re: Dylan Constants

[dyer@eagle.sharebase.com (Scot Dyer)]

/// I would hope that Dylan never does anything even vaguely resembling
/// the non-semantics of #define!

C's two-level syntax may be great for pseudo-assembly coding, but it is a 
mistake I don't want to see in Dylan.

Even worse than #define though, is #ifdef -- most mature maintenance of C
programs is a constant battle with conditional compilations.  They're just too
easy to add.  "Oh?  It broke on VAX?  I'll just put in some VAX specific code.
Oh?  It broke on MVS?  I'll just..."  Sooner or later, there's nothing left
but the patches, and no matter how well they're commented, sooner or later one
finds oneself reading a function definition and saying "What?!" only to later
discover that a #ifdef on the previous page of code excluded that particular
definition from compilation.  Ug!

	-- Scot