From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 7 13:50:20 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA19948 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:50:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from opi.flirtbox.ch ([62.48.0.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id NAA19874 for ; Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:50:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from oppermann@pipeline.ch) Received: (qmail 14815 invoked from network); 7 Oct 1998 20:50:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO pipeline.ch) (195.134.140.4) by opi.flirtbox.ch with SMTP; 7 Oct 1998 20:50:11 -0000 Message-ID: <361BD3ED.2CADC2C4@pipeline.ch> Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 22:49:49 +0200 From: Andre Oppermann Organization: Internet Business Solutions Ltd. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Smith CC: Brett Glass , Chuck Robey , FreeBSD-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft has a patent on [] (fwd) References: <199810072042.NAA02254@dingo.cdrom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Mike Smith wrote: -snip- > You should read the definition: > > 1 providing a library associated with the application program, the > library defining an evaluator for evaluating expressions according > to the second syntax. > 2 compiling the source code according to the first syntax into object > code for executing on a computer. > 3 interpreting a syntax structure in the source code consisting of a > character string enclosed between a predefined pair of separators > as an application-defined expression > 4 converting said syntax structure to coded instructions in the object > code (consisting) of a function call for invoking the evaluator > with the character string as a parameter whereby the evaluator is > invoked to evaluate the character string according to the second > syntax on execution of the object code. > > Interpreters are specifically excluded (they don't produce object > code). It's arguable whether a JIT bytecoder intrudes on enough of > this to be covered. > > It seems to be a patent on a hack for handling associative arrays > whereby you pretend that the language itself supports them. That sounds for me like VisualBasic... -- Andre To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message