[BRLTTY] Low-level BrlAPI questions

Dave Mielke Dave at mielke.cc
Sun May 9 13:03:40 EDT 2021


[quoted lines by Samuel Thibault on 2021/05/09 at 13:01 +0200]

>Why making the difference? What is the actual benefit here? The more
>subtle we make the API, the less approchable it becomes.

True.

>Really, the original intent was a straightforward:
>
>- if isArray = False, there is just one scalar value to return
>- if isArray = True, there is possibly different values to return, and
>  thus use whatever suits best the language (list, array, tuple) to
>  convey the values, even if there is just one value.
>- if count != 0 (only valid for isArray = True), the number of values
>  being returned is always equal to that count.

Okay. The bit about count actually being meanless when isArray is false should probably be formally documented. Or, we could change count to something more intuitively obvious like arraySize.

>If we make the interface more complex, we'll have to document it, thus
>making the documentation even bigger and longer to grasp, test it, make
>people understand the subtleties, etc.

Yes, it should remain simple and easily understandable.

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