OpenEuphoria

Euphoria features

• Posted by Jason Gade <jgade at NETZERO.NET> Nov 12, 1999
• 574 views

First, let me say that I love the simplicity of Euphoria (I even like the
abbreviation of 'U4' that someone came up with.)

Second, let me say that I have never written any large projects.  I have
been planning on writing a Euphoria 'Rogue' clone for nearly a year now, and
never did follow through with my 'CoreWar' ideas which Rod and others
inspired in me.

Now, on to *my* ideas.

First off, I think that Euphoria is very cool the way that it is.  Although
namespace needs to be addressed, programmers need to find the language's
true paradigm before trying to make it into C or Java.

The infamous construct of

    xy = get_position()
    position( xy[1],  xy[2] )

should never have been begat.  The most Euphorian solution should have been
for position() to take a sequence as a parameter list instead of integers.

    xy = get_position()
    position( xy )

I am even thinking (though not convinced) that functions and procedures
should *always* take one parameter, and that '&' should replace ',' as a
parameter separator.

    position( x & y )

Although I don't know object orientation very well, I do believe that
Euphoria should lean in that direction.  Mainly polymorphism ( I think that
that term is correct ) where functions and procedures take values that make
sense to them.

So, for my ideas to additions:

    { line, column } = get_position

does make *some* sense to me.  Not wholly in favor, but not against it
either.  I need more convincing.

My other idea, for namespace, is as follows:

    --foo.e

    include bar.e

    import var1, var2, var3 --you could even use a 'type' identifier (such
as integer, atom, sequence, user-defined) if you *must*
    import constant CONST_I, CONST_II, CONST_III
    import func_one, func_two, proc_three

The import keyword would make these identifiers global to the file.  If the
file was included, then it would be *just* within that file.  If the file
was the main program, then it would be the entire program (after the import
statements).

The main idea is that the programmer should *know* what is being included in
his/her program.

An alternate would be an 'export' keyword, which would put the onus on the
include file programmer to decide what should be exported.

I think that the 'type' declaration can adequately handle structures, but it
would be longer to program than in other languages.

    type employee( sequence empl )
        if length( empl ) = 4 then
            if sequence( empl[1] ) then -- last name, could use string type
                if sequence( empl[2] ) then -- first name, could use string
type
                    if atom( empl[3] ) then -- salary, could use float type
                        if integer( empl[4] ) then -- years in service,
could use type
                        return TRUE
                        end if
                    end if
                 end if
               end if
            end if
        return FALSE

This would trap bad structs, but it is cumbersome.  There may be a better
way.  Also, if speed is a consideration then it would only apply to dev,
alpha, or beta programs.  Then you should have 'without type_check' if your
source is stable.

I think that routine_id() is okay, but that it should be global.  This can
facilitate OO, and it could even do away with my proposed 'import' or
'export' keywords.

It should be combined with variable_id() though, even though I would loathe
to see pointers in Euphoria.   It could be useful in overriding scope when
necessary.

I can forsee a Euphoria in which most 'objects' are defined in separate
include files that contain functions for working with that object.
Object-oriented, but not in the non-flexible way that most OO languages are
defined.

Sequences are very powerful, and I think that we haven't even scratched the
surface yet in their utility.


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