Re: Minor syntax improvements (proposal)

Thanks for your suggestions.

I don't have any strong feelings over the first one stylistically, but
combining let and local would I think make the language harder to
parse and 'local" is not very frequently used and should stand out.

I'm *strongly* against changing = and :=. They do very different
things. Assignment using := is dangerous, makes programs difficult to
analyse and understand, and should be avoided where possible. That's
pretty much the whole point of "functional programming". Using := is
rare in my programs, and SHOULD stand out as being different to normal
code.



On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 1:42 AM, Luis Pedrero <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi
>
> sensing from the recent emails that there is some chance for
> language-changing proposals to be accepted, or at least to be taken
> into serious consideration (which does not happen in every language
> community), I gathered the courage to venture some small proposals of
> my own.
> Not much of a contribution, to be sure, and only pertaining to
> superficial aspects of the language.
>
> 1) allow the use of the keyword "local" (in addition/substitution to
> "let") to define a local variable. The word let, in itself, does not
> convey any meaning on locality, and in theory could also apply (for
> those who are not familiar with the language) to any type of variable.
> So it is a bit misleading, or at least not so much useful. The keyword
> local is much better, because it is self-explanatory.
>
> 2) Simplify the syntax of assignment operators, for the sake of
> consistency and simplicity. In all cases where an assignment is taking
> place, I propose that only one operator should be used.
> I fail to see the reason why = is used at all, in addition to :=
> I am probably missing something, but the point is: whatever the
> rationale for using =, i.e. yet another operator, in addition to :=,
> is this really justified in terms of economy of the language? I am not
> talking only in terms of compiler economy, but also in terms of
> programmer's mental economy... In sum, it would be much simpler to
> have only one assignment operator, and := is of course the best
> choice, because it is not ambiguous, whereas = is commonly used by
> many programmers for equality testing.
>
> These two improvements will add to the readability of the language, I believe.
>
> Regards,
>
> Luis
> _______________________________________________
> hackers mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.opendylan.org/mailman/listinfo/hackers
_______________________________________________
hackers mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.opendylan.org/mailman/listinfo/hackers