Re: [Nmh-workers] mh-format multiply function

[norm]

David Levine <address@hidden> writes:

>In general, if something goes wrong, the user should be
>informed.  Especially here, given that a user has a lot of
>flexibility in what they can put into a format.  And it's
>for the user to put something in that doesn't do what they
>mean.  While it might not (but could) be a huge problem when
>showing a message, I'm more concerned about outgoing
>messages.  Something might get left out, or put in
>inadvertently, due to unexpected format behavior.  While
>it's my responsibility to look at every character in every
>outgoing message, as messages get bigger and more complex,
>that gets harder.  I'd like all the help I can get from the
>tools.

Wouldn't the stderr from the procedure tend to mitigate that?

>
>> It might make a good M.S. history thesis to find out why it wasn't
>> there already.
>
>I was wondering about it, too.  Here's the commit that added divide,
>but not multiply:
>
>revision 1.2
>date: 1990/02/21 15:39:50;  author: sources;  state: Exp;  lines: +71 -61
>Fixes from Van Jacobson

I suppose that's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jacobson. He is apparently
still alive so our History graduate student could cheat by asking him

    Norman Shapiro