Language
Unlike other programming languages, the syntax of VDS is very simple. Each command occupies one line, and has a plain English name that clearly describes its purpose. Variables are typeless, and can hold many kinds of information, for example, numbers or text. Functions are clearly distinguishable with names that start with '@', just like a spreadsheet.
The DialogScript language has a simple syntax not unlike MS-DOS batch language. It is designed for ease of use and efficiency when being interpreted by the run-time engine. There are 10 system variables, %0 to %9, which initially have the script file name in %0 and command line parameters in %1 through %9, just as in a batch file. There are also a further 26 user variables, %A to %Z. The contents of all variables (including system ones) can be changed once the script is running. There are now also 4032 global variables. These variables begin with %%, a letter, then alphanumerics plus underscores (e.g. %%my_variable_1.) There is no limit on the length of these user-defined variable names.
Read more about this topic: Visual DialogScript
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)