OpenEuphoria

Re: Pass by address

• Posted by Andy Cranston <Andy.Cranston at EUPHONY.CO.UK> Aug 17, 2000
• 501 views

David Cuny wrote (and not in this order):

<SNIP>
>Rather than pass by reference, Euphoria allow a sort of dot notation. Most
>of the time, you're only passing one object to be altered. So:
>
>   a.bar( b, c )
>
>would be shorthand for:
>
>   a = bar( a, b, c )
>
>if bar was a function, and shorthand for:
>
>   bar( a, b, c )
>
>if bar was a procedure. That way, you could write:
>
>   window.center_window()
>
>and it would behave *properly*, as if it were a reference, without actually
>introducing reference passing to the language. No special keywords, no
>question about if a variable is a value or a reference. The syntax is
>natural:
>
>   myWindow.make_visible()
>   myPoint.add_point( 12, 32 )
>   myAccount.debit( 5000.00 )
>   myShape.draw()
>
>It looks like it's OOP, but it's not. It's just syntactic sugar.
<SNIP>

That's a very elegant proposal and applicable to alot of procedural
languages that have assignment and functions - not just Euphoria.  Full
marks!

<SNIP>
and then call it like this:

   window = center_window( window )

I'm cringing just writing that code. *bleah* After coding in C, QBasic and
Java, this just feels unnatural.
<SNIP>

As code like this has such an adverse effect on you (re: *bleah*  I'll
have to make a mental note not to show you any of my code   It's littered
with this sort of stuff.  Can you believe that most of my C programs have
things like:

   var = var + 1

!!!  Maybe I just like torturing myself 

Actually my coding style (if it can be called a style!) is on the "baby"
side.  I heard the term "baby programming" a few years back and liked it
because it described my programming style very well.  One look at any of my
code and other programmers instantly react with things like "it's better if
you do it like this - less code, more elegant, etc. etc.".  The point is
that although the code is longer than it needs to be, might not exploit
handy features of the language and what not the code is instantly readable
(well almost).  The fact than another programmer can take one look at my
code and immediately grasp what I trying to do and come up with more succint
and elegant ways to do it is, for me, actually a compliment.  I've written
something that is understandable - maybe pretty ugly but understandable
never the less.

Of course I'd never get away with this if I coded for a living - I'd starve
for a start.  But for my requirements right now I'll continue with the "baby
programming".

Regards,

Andy Cranston.