[Oberon] System.Directory options

[Skulski, Wojciech]

Nemo:

 adding tools like regular expressions ("embellishments" in Oberon speak) is the task for users. There are lots of applications of any sort under Linz V4, and even more in Component Pascal Collection. These can be ported back to plain vanilla Oberon System, if one is desperate. My proposition was more modest. Since there is a discussion of the directory listing options, and there is a proposition for adding multiple options, and these options are activated with single characters, it all starts looking familiar to me. If so, then why use characters like !@#$% for these options, if there is already a case, which is known to everyone? It will be more user friendly if similar functionality is provided in a way which we all already use on daily basis.

On a more general basis, the character "!" was clearly a hack. It was meant an as exception to otherwise clean rules. Apparently, clean rules led to restrictions, and the real life prevailed. The story looks familiar to me. An exception is tolerable if it stays an exception. But the exceptions, which proliferate, should be telling something. My proposition says "let's acknowledge that there is need for <something>", which in this case is a need for options. I proposed to essentially follow Andreas's thoughts, but use familiar characters for these options. A more thorough proposition would say "lets make the options stand out more clearly", which is already the case with other modules such as the compiler. I am not going that far. 

Does it make sense?

Wojtek
________________________________________
From: Oberon [oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch] on behalf of Nemo [cym224 at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2017 2:05 PM
To: ETH Oberon and related systems
Subject: Re: [Oberon] System.Directory options

On 1 November 2017 at 12:54, Skulski, Wojciech
<skulski at pas.rochester.edu> wrote (in part):

> I wonder whether we should not adopt some of the Unix/Linux syntax at this point in
> order to make the System somewhat more palatable to casual users.

Do you mean adding a "glob-like" expander under the hood?  As you
know, the shell expands regexp in Unix but where would you put this in
the Oberon I/F?

N.
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