checking if a list is empty

[Hans Georg Schaathun]

On Thu, 12 May 2011 02:05:21 +1000, Chris Angelico
  <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
:  In a Bourne shell script, if ends with fi... case ends with esac... so
:  file would end with... hmm. Yeah, I think it's best to know the
:  language you're trying to comprehend, and/or actually look at context
:  instead of shoving a piece of code under someone's nose and saying "I
:  bet you can't figure out what THIS does!".

Code is quite often published to document algorithms, methods and
formulæ for the purpose of scientific research.  Since there is no
universal language which suits everything and everyone, this
is exactly what happens.  One has to have the rudimentary knowledge
to read half a dozen different languages to be able to read the
code and extract the algorithms.  If one tried to maintain the
necessary programming skills to exploit all of those languages to
their full potential, one would simply not be able to keep up with
the application discipline.

If all you do is to write software for computer illiterate users, YMWV.

-- 
:-- Hans Georg