Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Round II -- new language, arch, furth, etc.

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Aaron Bentley <address@hidden>

    > What I mean is that when all you have is assignment, all the
    > rules for how values are used can be known in advance, and
    > programmed into the programs that use the data.  Programs can
    > use this knowlege to display it in ways that make sense to
    > users, and manipulate it in ways that are based on a deep
    > understanding of the way the data is used.

That works with boilerplate variable formulas, too, the difference
being that, absent formulas, only whoever gets to make new tla
releases gets to define new uses for values whereas with formulas,
third parties can do that.

    > > Why can't the GUI say:
    > > 
    > >     my-default-archive
    > > 
    > >       value: address@hidden
    > > 
    > >       definition: (archive-of my-default-fq-version)
    > > 
    > > and allow users to edit the definition but not the value?

In other words, kind of a "spreadsheet" approach to configuration
settings.


    > It certainly can, but I don't believe that's appropriate for
    > this domain.  I can only think of two or three ways that users
    > would generate my-default-archive.

I can imagine lots of ways.  It might depend on what "hat" a user is
wearing (e.g., maintainer vs. contributor vs. observer) and which
project is in play and on what the branching history of the current
project tree is and an other command line options or the 
particular command being run or the value listed in project database
file next to the user's name or...


-t