Re: New variable type: matrix

At 10:48 AM 8/28/00 -0400, Karl Glazebrook wrote:

>Using semicolons is an interesting idea. But consider:
>
>@a[10:20; 30:40];
>
>The ":"s and ";" are awfully hard to visually distinguish.

True, but @a[10..20; 30..40]; isn't hard to distinguish.

Even so, you might get such things as:

@a[10..20:2; 30..40:2]; which could cause the confusion you mention.

But for me, on the platforms I work on, I have a harder time distinguishing 
between () and {} that ; and :.  Visually, it's hard for me to see that 
{foo (bar} baz) is unbalanced, yet @a[10:20;30:40]; is clear.

>c.f.
>
>@a[10:20, 30:40];

This has other problems I'm discussing in the RFC that Nathan Wiger 
requested of me (being written in another window right now).



>What do people feel about the whole replacing ".." by ":"
>issue?

I think the RFC which suggests using both .. and : in ranges for different 
meanings is probably a useful distinction. ".." is more intuitive a range 
indicator than ":".  I see "1, 2, 3, ... , 50" all the time, so "1..50" 
works, but I never see a ":" used in an analogous situation.


>Karl