Style: global configuration data

[Quinn Dunkan]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000 18:13:58 -0800, John W. Baxter <jwbnews at scandaroon.com>
wrote:
>In article <8un6fv0g7i at news2.newsguy.com>, "Alex Martelli" 
><aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> "Steve Williams" <sandj.williams at gte.net> wrote in message
>> news:3A0EF361.4F7FA244 at gte.net...
>> > Michael Hudson's sig block says:
>> >
>> > > 59. In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in
>> > >     our programming languages.
>> > >   -- Alan Perlis, http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
>> >
>> > Lermontov's poem Parus (The Sail) starts out the with Russian word for
>> white
>> > (Byelo) used as a verb:
>> >
>> > (Byelyeet Parus odinaky. . .)
>> >
>> > Maybe Perlis knows how to 'verb' the word white, but I sure don't.
>> Shines?
>> > Glistens?  Glitters? Coruscates?  Bleaches?  Blanches?  Whites?  I don't
>> think
>> > so.
>> 
>> "Whitens" is one possibility -- while the transitive senses of the
>> verb "to whiten" are more common, it does have intransitive use,
>> too.  (Actually, "glistens" sounds better to me in this context,
>> but it's less literal, I think).
>
>Perhaps it is time to "unretire" good old...
>    glisters

Oohhh...  that's nice.  I'm sure I had an ecyclopedia on Uqbar around here,
unfortunately I can't seem to find it at the moment.  In addition to
verbification, it also contained a fascinating discourse on a programming
language where iteration involved mutation of the index, i.e. numeric mutation
was fundamental.  It involved the notion that all numbers are indefinate, but
it didn't use backtracking or anything.  Puts a new perspective on floating
point, that's for sure.

-- 
Mirrors and copulation are abominable, for they multiply the
number of mankind.