Re: Am I stupid?

[Jaco van Gorkom <j.c.van.gorkom(at)fz-juelich.de>]

Paul van Delst wrote:
> Jaco van Gorkom wrote:
> > Craig Markwardt wrote:
> > > "Liam E. Gumley" <Liam.Gumley@ssec-nospam.wisc.edu> writes:
> > > > Colin Rosenthal wrote:
> > > > > ... to have a keyword AXISCOLOR in a routine that also accepts
> > > > > the AX keyword. ...
> > > > ...
> > > > "Keywords can be abbreviated to their shortest unique length"
> > > >
> > > > In your case, the keyword AX precludes the use of another keyword which
> > > > begins with the letters "AX". ...
> > > 
> > > ... I want keywords like TIME, TIMEUNIT, TIMESTEP,
> > > and so on.  My suggestion is that the above policy should hold,
> > > *unless* there is an exact match to a specific keyword.

On second reading, the documentation ("IDL> ? abbreviating keywords") exactly
describes Craig's suggestion. The full keyword TIME cannot be abbreviated to a
shorter unique length, whereas TIMESTEP can be abbreviated to the shortest
unique lenght TIMES. Nowhere in the documentation can I find the behaviour that
the keyword TIME may not be used, simply because... because... well, for no reason
at all actually. So I would consider this to be a bug, not a policy.

> It will make code harder to read and understand. Once you give your code to others, they
> may use it in other code with abbreviated keywords and not enough comments as to what they
> are doing.

I fully agree, *if* you are referring to the general (over-)use of keyword abbreviation.

> The current set up does not allow this.

Yes it does. That's what keyword abbreviation is all about.

> > So who is frustrated enough to put in a feature
> > request with RSI (/VNI?) for this, for the benefit of us all?
> I wonder if there is a way for me to write a little Perl script to automatically send in a
> Feature Un-Request whenever this Feature Request is emailed to RSI......  :o)

:-) .  `Feature request' was the wrong wording. I should have said `bug report'.
Paul, would you take the honours? :-)

Cheers,
  Jaco

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Jaco van Gorkom                               gorkom@rijnh.nl
FOM-Instituut voor Plasmafysica `Rijnhuizen', The Netherlands