🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thursday, in article <815949662.17979@thokk.demon.co.uk>
     Malcolm@demon.net "Malcolm Muir" wrote:

MM> Anthony R. Gold (tgold@microvst.demon.co.uk) wrote:
MM> > In article <815947544snx@holly.demon.co.uk>
MM> >            mcr@holly.demon.co.uk "Mark Rogers" writes:
MM> 
MM> > > Would be hard (or memory intensive) to extend this so that anything from 
MM> > > the right of a hash was considered a comment? Eg:
MM> 
MM> > This is a script file of NET commands which is interpreted line by line,
MM> > so the only cost would be of the smop and not of memory.

You could store your script file somewhere else, and generate
autoexec.net from it with a pre-processor.  And that's actually
what I do myself, though not to make comments prettier.

However, I don't think that would appeal to many.

MM> No, programming adds code to the code space which in turn impacts of
MM> free memory. It may be possible to modify the code to work as
MM> requested without increasing its size, but I won't commit to that
MM> without a careful look.

Probably take all of, oh, an extra 20 bytes?  But I support
your caution, I really hate to see extra ka9q memory soaked up
on trivialities.  To parody the old "How does a project get to
be a year late?  One day at a time!" one could say "How does
a program get too big for 640K?  20 bytes at a time!".

MM> 
MM> > You can right now use a mixture of spaces, blank lines and commands to
MM> > make thinks pretty readable.  Mine was commented only with a view to 
MM> > reminding me what I am doing, so things could still be improved:
MM> 
MM> [deleted]
MM> 
MM> Indeed that is the way I document my own files.

Thankfully I don't program in Fortran any more.  All comments
marked by a 'C' in column 1.   Yuck.

I know it's easier when hacking up a script file facility
to design it in a line oriented fashion.  But if it's
designed free format from the start it really isn't much
harder to do -- any aspiring script file designers out
there please note!

--
John Washington