Re: enum options
- Posted by Matt Lewis Jul 18, 2008
- 886 views
enum should be perform in the same way that it is used in C.
Why don't you go to a C compiler source code and see how it is done in that code.
The last thing I want to do is to go through the source code for a C-compiler. I'm not sure what purpose this would serve, in any case.
If it was done this way then translating to compiled C code would be straight forward...
I can't imagine how it would make anything easier when translating to C code.
...and new users who use C would not be confused.
This suggestion assumes that the most common usage of enums will be for wrapping C code. I doubt this to be the case. And I care more for making euphoria easier for euphoria programmers than for theoretical users coming from another language. They know that they're using a different language. Since we're actually programming in euphoria, we should follow euphoria conventions, and starting at 1 is much more useful. It's really not that difficult to add in the "= 0" to the first enum, if that's the requirement.
Further, I think that the "with base=n" will lead to difficult to maintain code. I think that if you need some weirdness, it's better to explicitly declare it. If you're creating a set of bit flags, don't use enums. Use constants. It will be much clearer for everyone reading the code.
Matt
