String is: ByteArray?

[Lendvai Attila]

Hi!
 
I've been working on encoding support for external resources and had a hard time tracking down a bug. The problem was that some methods had two versions, one dispatching on ByteArray and one dispatching on NoRole. But as String is: ByteArray therefore I had to add another version that dispatches on String.
 
So my question is: is it a temporary bootstrap solution that String is a ByteArray or is there some intention in it? I've added a KLUDGE comment to the two extra methods that they are only there because of this fact.
 
Later today I'll check in my changes which include:
- encode:/decode: protocol for ExternalResources
- some refactoring in ER to use optionals
- Terminal line editing fixes
 
There is only one issue left for the Terminal code that I'll fix later today (wrapping lines) and it'll be done as far as I can see. Line editing mostly works, except that I don't know what is 'yank' and 'killbuffer' and therefore what the code is supposed to do.
 
What is left to do is to integrate it with the parser. Line editing supports continuing the edit in case it's desired. It should work so that when an enter is pressed the parser is called. If the parse fails, the cursor should be put at a useful position and editing should continue.
 
I'll try to call parser on: line and if it fails to parse an expression and consume all chars then reset the parser and continue editing. Or something like that... Lee, if you have some ideas... :)
 
Back to coding,
 
- 101