🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <80426796@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) wrote:
> In article <JWZ.91May5141303@thalidomide.lucid.com> jwz@lucid.com (Jamie Zawinski) writes:
>>I think the problem is using insanely short identifier names.  This isn't
>>AppleSoft Basic!  
> 
> No, but it frequently is serially transmitted.  The urge to keep
> spooling time to a minimum is a natural one.  When you reach the point
> where you're picking weird names to try and survive, there's something
> wrong.

If you will recall, what I said was

> I think the problem is using insanely short identifier names.  This isn't
> AppleSoft Basic!  If you're doing something like
> 
>       /p /show load def
> 
> then I can respect that, because it's probably to reduce file size.  But if
> you're doing
> 
>      /test { /p exch def p show } bind def
> 
> then you've probably got no excuse.

I am not suggesting that the non-prolog part of PostScript files look like

	(foo) draw-one-word-at-current-point
	(bar) draw-one-word-at-current-point
	(baz) draw-one-word-at-current-point

but I am suggesting that, in the prolog sections, nominally local variables
should have long names.  To do otherwise is an affront to all that is holy.

You shouldn't be "picking weird names to try and survive."  You should be
picking meaningful identifiers because it's good programming style in any
language.

If you are writing a prolog that is large enough to be a transmission-time
hit in and of itself, like the prologs generated by most mac programs, and
by Adobe Illustrator, then you're doing something wrong already.  It's not
really very hard AT ALL to structure your PostScript-producing application
to dump out only the subroutines which are necessary to a particular document.
If I'm just printing text, I don't need all those routines to screw around
with RGB values and curves, thank you very much.

	-- Jamie