Each Design Note fits into one of the following categories:
The first section of each Design Note contains the following parts:
Some Design Notes have an additional section which may include implementation notes, further examples, or some of our reasons for making the change.
Throughout the Design Notes, the term parameter is used to mean formal parameter. That is, a parameter is a local variable bound upon entry to a function. The Design Notes use the term argument to describe what is sometimes called an actual parameter. That is, an argument is an object that is passed as the value of a parameter.
The names of parameters are often descriptive of the type of value acceptable as a value of the parameter. They will often match the names of classes, indicating a general instance of the class. For example, number indicates a general instance of the class <number>, and string indicates a general instance of the class <string>.
The following notation is used to describe syntax forms:
{...} Curly braces indicate a group of items. {...}* Curly braces followed by an asterisk indicate that the contents can appear zero or more times. {...}+ Curly braces followed by a plus sign indicate that the contents can appear one or more times. [...] Square brackets indicate that the contents are optional. ... | ... Items separated by a vertical bar are mutually exclusive. One or the other may appear.We issue the Design Notes in plain text format as well as in PostScript. In the PostScript format, we use a small number of typographic conventions to enhance readability:
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To access the current Dylan FAQ, archived Dylan Design Notes, and other archived Dylan information, connect by anonymous ftp to cambridge.apple.com. Dylan information is located in the /pub/dylan directory.