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[REBOL] Re: Scope? Any advice would be appreciated.

From: rebol:mascari at: 29-Jan-2001 19:17

Thank-you all for the clarification of immutable and mutable. This fixes my problem, but just as David mentioned in a previous post, the lack of consistency in operations can confuse people unless they are intimate with the logical decisions that govern Rebol's design. Although I can "see" that the datatype determines the functionality of the assignment operator, its not documented in the Rebol guide under "Setting Words" and the behavior is not consistent with immutables. On the surface, the first pass through the routine, b: [ 0 0 0 ] does the same thing as b: 0. But on subsequent runs the behaviors part paths and cause confusion and unexpected behavior for those of us who do not understand the underlying logic of Rebol. But, then again, why should I need to understand the underlying logic of Rebol? If the basic instruction manual doesn't explain this, then how is anyone to know it? How many other undocumented design decisions are there that impact basic operational usage? Also, I still don't see the value here - what benefit is secured by making these two different? Why do I have to use "copy" to accomplish with mutables the same thing that is accomplished without "copy" for immutables? Shouldn't a single operator implement a single concept? I know there are a lot of questions above, but in order for me to understand the goals of the Rebol product, I need to ask them. I still don't see the big picture. Again, thanks to all, Victor Mascari