OpenEuphoria

Re: Discussion concerning [POLL] Sequences of types

• Posted by Juergen Luethje <j.lue at ?mx.?e> Aug 24, 2007
• 784 views

Derek Parnell wrote:

> Juergen Luethje wrote:
> > 
> > To all people who voted 3. UNRESTRICTED:
> > 
> > Are you aware that this is a good source for causing nightmares
> > (as has been discussed previously)?
> 
> I've been busy so I might have missed that discussion.

I see now that this is actually a big problem.
So I strongly suggest that everyone who makes a poll, not only asks
"Would you prefer A or B?", but also SUMMARIZES THE PROS AND CONS OF THE
OPTIONS, according to the previous discussion.

> I can't see why it would be any more a problem being unrestricted than being
> restricted to user-defined-types.
> 
>   integer list X  -- only integers can be placed in this.
> 
> where is the problem?
> 
>   type mt (integer list A)
>      return 1
>   end type
>   mt X -- only integers can be placed in this.
> 
> Why is there a difference?

Say we have something like
   names = {"Tom", "Mary", "Bob"}

If the new syntax is not restricted, then at least each of the following
would be syntactically correct:
   object names
   sequence names
   sequence of sequence names
   sequence of sequence of object names
   sequence of sequence of atom names
   sequence of sequence of integer names

and maybe even
   object of sequence names
   object of sequence of object names
   object of sequence of atom names
   object of sequence of integer names

or
   sequence of object names
   sequence of object of object names
   sequence of object of atom names
   sequence of object of integer names

or
   object of object names
   object of object of object names
   object of object of atom names
   object of object of integer names

( Maybe I forgot a possibility. )

This is very confusing, especially for beginners, and has IMHO nothing
got to do with the spirit of Euphoria.

That's why Pete Lomax suggested to restrict the new syntax to the
definition of types. Then w'd have to create a user-defined type say
"word_list", and in our programs we just say:
   word_list names

I'm strongly against the introduction of the new type syntax without
this restriction.

Regards,
   Juergen