[PD] Local "variable" names question + messages

[Joseph Zitt]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 09:43:29 -0700
Miller Puckette <mpuckett at man104-1.ucsd.edu> wrote:

> I think it might be unwise... The "$" meanings in objects and messages
> are actually the same; the text is simply interpeted in different
> contexts.

Well, I think what we may be hitting here is the frequent gap between
programmer and end-user perceptions. By saying that they "are actually
the same", I suspect that you're coming from seeing that they share the
same code (I'm not sure, not being quite able to interpret the code
itself). However, from the viewpoint of someone using the program
without knowledge of the innards of the source, they are quite
different and behave quite differently. I believe I've seen this issue
come up a few times; in such cases, I've found that changing the
documentation tends to be less effective than enhancing the interface.

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