Re: flip flop operator proposal (from condition to condition do )

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In article <40203AC3.4010207 / email.byu.edu>,
Jamis Buck  <jgb3 / email.byu.edu> wrote:
>Phil Tomson wrote:
>
>>
>>Another idea would be to have a 'from (condition) to (condition)'
>>statement that looks looks like:
>>  from l=~/BEGIN/ to l=~/END/ do
>>    #do something in this range
>>  end
>>  
>>
>
>What if we just use the keyword 'in' to introduce a flipflop, and retain 
>the range-ish syntax to separate the conditions?  Something like this:
>
>  if in l=~/BEGIN/ .. l=~/END/
>     ...
>  end
>
>The advantage of using a boolean phrase is that you can use it in 
>conditions, where it is most common.  That also lets you do something 
>when the flipflop is false, which the 'from..do' construct you suggested 
>doesn't (easily) allow.
>
>Since getting at the object that encapsulates the state of the flipflop 
>will be less common (one might even say "rare", although its hard to say 
>at this point since neither Perl nor Ruby allow it), the common case 
>(just getting the boolean result) should be simple and straightforward.  
>Getting at the object might be done via something like this:
>
>  in l=~/BEGIN/ .. l=~/END/ => state
<snip>
>
>>I'm just sort of brainstorming here, but I think the 'from .. to ..
>>{}' statement is very readable and the intent is quite clear and it
>>just might be able to replace the current flipflop operators.
>>  
>>
>
>I agree, 'from .. to ...' is very readable, but perhaps not as 
>convenient given the regular usage of the flip-flop operator.  Then 
>again, I'd like to hear from someone who uses the flip-flop a lot as to 
>whether they feel it would be cumbersome.  Readability is good, but if 
>you take it too far you get VB and Pascal, which are easy to learn, but 
>clunky (IMO) to actually write software in.

I use the flip-flop pretty commonly when I'm parsing files.  For my usage, 
the from..to.. would probably work fine:

 #not a real example, of course 
 File.foreach{|l|
    from l=~/BEGIN/ to /END/ do
      #nesting should work ok
      from l=~/def/ to /end/ do
        #method definition
      end
      from l=~/from/ to /end/ do
        #proposed syntax,  parse thyself
      end
    end
    #would we need elsfrom?
    from l=~/<html>/i to l=~/</\html>/i
      #in an HTML file
    end
 }

But others have suggested that they use the flipflop for other things.  I 
think that if the from construct returns a FlipFLop object that it would 
be useable for these other appliations as well, but I'd like to hear some 
other suggestions.

Maybe the from..to.. construct should just return a boolean, then it would 
be used with an if statement like:

  if from (condition) to (condition)

But using 'from' could still be slanted more toward the file parsing 
application, rather than a more general purpose usage.  I thought of 
'from' because that's the main way I use the flip/flop operator.

BTW: I really don't like the 'flip' idea:

  if flip (condition) to (condition)

because it's not clear from reading it what 'flip' means.

Phil