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From: Jan Atle Ramsli <trollet@skynet.be>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta
Subject: Please, some critique!
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 15:41:52 +0200
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Xref: news.net.uni-c.dk comp.lang.beta:13205

I need to know when I am 'getting the hang of it' - it feels that way,
but Beta is so full of optimizing+clarifying stuff that I am never
really sure.
I have a main window with three browsers in it, of type TextScrollList,
I want to fill them from some 'tables' 
that are just newline-separated lines containing the text to be
displayed on one line in the TextScrollList.

The three kinds of items that can be selected, to produce a
'Configuration' that goes in a fourth window, are:

Screens - Example: 19" Relisys, Philips 107B 17", ...
Printers - Example: TI microWriter 32, HP Deskjet 850C, Olympia
'Electronic', ...
Towers - Example: Sun 19" rack, CheapS&ite 13"x7"x15" mini, ...

I feel that I did not overdo the subpatterning, because now I can
specialze fx. ScreenTableReader to contain 
subtables, when more choices are available, you may want to just select
'Nokia' and then screen size (17",19",21",25", etc.).
And on the Printer side, I could add a comment, like 
'TI microWriter will never break', or 
'DeskJet 850C please do not use up all the ink, cartridges more
expensive than printer', 
and so on ...

But I need to know that I am doing things right from a Beta perspective.
I do not want to pick up bad habits that will be had to kick later.

THe tables are instantiated on the root level, together with the window,
there is no 'table functionality' in 
any window-subpattern and vice versa.
I have learned that this is good Model-View-Controller design, and hope
this is still valid :-)

So, here it is, I am for safety's sake keeping the Fire Brigade on
alert:


tablefile: file
  (#
     NoSuchFileError::<
       (#  do name->putLine; ' not found'->putLine; false->continue #)
  #);
TableReader:
  (#
     t: @TableFile;
     tn: ^text;
     open:< (#  do INNER ; t.openRead;  #);
     read:
       (# txt: ^text
       do (if t.eos then none ->txt[]; leave read else t.getLine->txt[]
if)
       exit txt[]
       #);
     close: (#  do t.close #)
  #);
TowerTableReader: TableReader
  (# open::< (#  do 'towers.txt'->t.name #) #);
PrinterTableReader: TableReader
  (# open::< (#  do 'printers.txt'->t.name #) #);
ScreenTableReader: TableReader
  (# open::< (#  do 'screens.txt'->t.name;  #);  #) 

-- All done with the mjolner tool, from designing the screens to laying
out patterns!!!!
It still doesn't like me to do too many very stupid things, but is much
more forgiving that previous.
Now I can do 10-20 stupid things, before I could do 0-3.

Atle

(PS Hope I'm not being a total nuisance!
PS)