[ic] Frustrated with IC 4.8

[Jim Balcom]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, Jon Jensen wrote:

JJ>>Jim, I remember the occasion you're talking about. The "programmers" was
JJ>>me -- and your memory is bad. The snippet you gave had nothing to do with
JJ>>it. We were discussing this obscure, never-documented, never-used
JJ>>construct:
JJ>>
JJ>><!--[sometag ...]-->
JJ>>
JJ>>and the parse routine for it. I decided it was better not to change
JJ>>something that would make only the tiniest theoretical improvement, on a
JJ>>tag syntax nobody uses, just to make the documentation a little simpler.

Nope! While my reference was slightly off-target, your memory is also bad.
Here is a piece of a message near the end of our discussion:
----------------------
> What I propose it to read is:
>
> 'While '<!--[' and '[' are interchangeable, the Interchange parser does
> not replace ']-->' with ']' unless it sees '<!--[' previously on the
> page.' (Change 'elsewhere' to 'previously')

I see what you mean, but it's not actually correct. The code looks to see
if <!--[ appears *anywhere* on the page, before replacing each ]--> and
<!--[, regardless of whether they're in pairs or not.

Whether this is the best way in the world to do this or not, Bill was
making the docs state how the code actually works.

I'll change it to say:

... unless it also sees '<!--[' at least once somewhere on the page.

------------------------

I couldn't interpret this at the time that we were discussing it, and I
can't interpret it now, other than the fact that what appears on the page
has an excellent opportunity to be vastly different than expected.

JJ>>
JJ>>Now to your sample snippet:
JJ>>
JJ>>> (snippet)
JJ>>> some code and stuff for the page
JJ>>> more stuff
JJ>>> [/comment]
JJ>>> more lines of stuff
JJ>>> [comment]
JJ>>> We are giving away money today
JJ>>> [/comment]
JJ>>>
JJ>>> Now, because there is a [/comment] on the page before [comment] the
JJ>>> [comment] is shut off immediately. To me, this is stupid behavior and needs
JJ>>> to be corrected. The Akopia employees writing the documentation chose to not
JJ>>> do anything about it.
JJ>>
JJ>>I don't know what you're talking about here. When I try that exact
JJ>>snippet, the only noteworthy effect is that a literal '[/comment]' is
JJ>>printed after 'more stuff', which is just what I'd expect when there was
JJ>>no opening [comment] tag to begin with. The real comment container below
JJ>>properly removes 'We are giving ...' from the output, as it should.

I miswrote this. It needs to be used in conjunction with '<!--[' in order
for this to happen. Otherwise, it's correct.

JJ>>So what would you like it to do? In any case, you have never mentioned it
JJ>>to me or any other developer, as far as I know.

The quote above is what you wrote to me. I consider that it was reported and
you told me that it wasn't going to be changed.

What would I like it to do??

I would like it to need to see an opener followed by a closer and to ignore
what falls in between, rather than to accept a closer followed by an opener
and ignoring who knows what?

-= Jim =-

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Jim's Linux-Operated Underground Bomb Shelter

Tagline for Tuesday, September 18, 2001 at 18:10 PM:
The best way to keep friends is not to give them away.

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