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   REPLYADDR steveo@eircom.net   
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   MSGID: <20240101200556.b6a00bf16347d140ac40ea21@eircom.net> 00471699   
   REPLY:  5401f0b3   
   PID: SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
   On 1 Jan 2024 19:08:40 GMT   
   TimS  wrote:   
      
   > On 01 Jan 2024 at 19:04:13 GMT, "Charlie Gibbs"    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   > > On 2024-01-01, Ahem A Rivet's Shot  wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> On 31 Dec 2023 22:50:01 GMT   
   > >> TimS  wrote:   
   > >>   
   > >>> On 31 Dec 2023 at 21:36:25 GMT, "Charlie Gibbs"   
   > >>>  wrote:   
   > >>>   
   > >>>> I remember that.  It had something to do with enclosing all keywords   
   > >>>> in apostrophes in place of the bold-faced type in the reference   
   > >>>> books. It was nasty both in appearance and typing.   
   > >>>   
   > >>> Yes, yes !! That was it. Quite why we had to do that was a mystery.   
   > >>   
   > >>     It was so that the set of keywords in the language could be   
   > >> extended without any risk of them ever being mistaken for variables.   
   > >> The idea was that keywords were picked out by "stropping" them either   
   > >> by CASE or with 'quotes' or by typeface (bold usually) instead of   
   > >> there being a set of keywords that could not be used as variable names.   
   > >   
   > > That makes sense.  Remember COBOL reserved words?   
   >   
   > What SQLite does is sort of the opposite. If you want to define a column   
   > or table with what is in fact a reserved word, then you have to put   
   > double-quotes around it in your definition. If you avoid reserved words   
   > then nothing (except strings) needs quoting. Much better than what Algol   
   > did. Really off-putting, it was.   
      
   	That does not achieve what the Algol stropping achieves, which is   
   to ensure that code does not need to be changed when the language is   
   extended. If a new keyword is added to Algol it doesn't matter if code uses   
   that word as a variable, it will still compile correctly and do what it   
   ever did.   
      
   --   
   Steve O'Hara-Smith   
   Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/   
   Host: Beautiful Theory meet Inconvenient Fact   
   Obit: Beautiful Theory died today of factual inconsistency   
      
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