if command

[mbp]

> This works fine:
> (if (sgi) (echo "true\n") (echo "false\n"))
> and prints out "true" (or "false," as the case may be).

Hmm.  Nothing comes to mind immediately as to why this would happen.
Both the X and Y clauses in (if <condition> X Y) are parsed in all
cases but only one should actually be evaluated.  I'll take a look at
it and report back later.

> (emodule-define encompass "echo (look-encompass World)")
> and 
> (emodule-define dodec 
> 	"echo \"(geometry dodec.off < /u/gcg/ngrap/data/geom/dodec.off)\"")

These are indeed interesting/amusing but they give me the creeps.  I
think we need to be careful about starting to use tricks like this;
what really needs to happen is that geomview should be fixed so as not
to necessitate such kludges.  If we do these things and our users find
out about and latch onto them, then we could be faced with pressure to
provide backward compatibility for features that were really just
implementation quirks in a previous version.

Of course there is the issue of time; these features might not be
added/fixed for quite some time.  Everyone can certainly put whatever
they want in their own private .geomview in order to work around bugs
or deficencies, and it's certainly OK to let each other know about
such tricks. [I realize that's all you were doing, Celeste.]

I just want to encourage caution about including anything like this in
something we release, or mentioning them to our user community at
large.

--Mark