OpenEuphoria

Re: ? 1={}, is there really any other interpretation?

• Posted by Pete Lomax <petelomax at blueyond?r.co.?k> Jul 16, 2007
• 712 views

Andy Serpa wrote:
> the answer is, of course, just to ADD NEW OPERATORS -- just add a colon (or
> whatever) to each operator to make it a strict boolean operator:
> 
> :<
> :=
> :>
> 
> etc.
> 
> Problem solved.  No code breaks, and you've got some nice shortcuts so you
> never
> have to type compare().  What's the problem with that?
Some reasons why it should be @< to specify a sequence op rather than
:< to specify an atomic op:
1) Over 99.95% of existing operator usage is atomic.
2) It should be possible for one deviation in parser.e to process
   new @-ops whereas :-ops would probably want to be interleaved?
   (Specifically I am thinking that UFactor could have the one test
    if tok[T_ID]>=SPLUS and tok[T_ID]<=SXOR then invoke a new parse
    chain of SExpr->Srexpr->Scexpr->Saexpr->Sterm->SUFactor->Factor
    else ->Factor as now, iyswim.)
3) :-ops add to rather than decrease (newbie) confusion.
    return name="pete" is the natural thing to type.
    replacing "use equal()" with "use :=" is less than helpful.
    Eg name@="pete" makes it clear I want lots of 1s and 0s.
4) ":=" looks very misleading to this particular ex-Pascal student.

Rob: Perhaps instead of asking "should we kill off sequence ops", which
I am not advocating, it is the IMPLICIT part that causes problems, the
questions that should be asked (as well) are:
  Do we want short-circuiting in all expressions? This cannot be done
   as long as "and" & "or" are sequence-op-capable, but could be if
   "and" became atom-only and either "@and" or "sq_and()" created to
   replace that particular functionality, ditto "or".
  Do we want the 'if name="pete" then' gotcha to go away and instead
   for such expressions to work as humans expect?
  Do we want expressions to have the same meaning wherever they occur
   or behave different in if/while to assign/params?

Regards,
Pete

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