Re: Am I stupid?

[Paul van Delst <paul.vandelst(at)noaa.gov>]

James Kuyper wrote:
> 
> Paul van Delst wrote:
> ...
> > > 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.
> >
> > Umm, I haven't had my requisite 4 cups of coffee yet this morning so I may be fading in
> > and out here, but if you specify a keyword TIME=something, how is the interpreter supposed
> > to know if you are specifying TIME, TIMEUNIT abrreviated to "TIME", or TIMESTEP
> > abbreviated to "TIME"? My initial fix would be to rename TIME to TIMEVALUE and stick an
> > easy to see comment somewhere in the header warning users about abbreviating these
> > keywords too much.
> 
> It would know that TIME cannot be an abbreviated keyword, because it's
> too short to be unique. Therefore, it must be the full keyword.

If I understand you (and Jaco) correctly, what you're saying is:

   The abbreviated keyword is too short to be unique, therefore it is.

For some reason this discussion bring Godel's Incompleteness Theorem to mind. I think this
is a case where statements can be neither proved nor disproved.... :o)

paulv

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