OpenEuphoria

RE: Changing Euphoria

• Posted by Shawn Pringle <pringle at techie.com> Jan 31, 2002
• 419 views

Ofcourse pass by reference is relatively cheap in EUPHORIA, being copy 
on write pointers.  It would seem to me that code like:
list = append(list,a)  should be optimized to something like:
append(!!list,a) keeping with your notation.  As, the object passed in 
will be reassigned there is no need to copy a new list in append.

Apparently EUPHORIA already does this, at least for append.  The 
documentation says "highly optimized."  

As for object orientation, as you said, something like:
      stack.push( 9 )
would have to be stack = stack.push( 9 ), unless ofcourse we have
stack=.push(9) for pass by reference like the other = ops.

It may be pass by reference but we still only change things on the left 
side of the "=".

It sounds like we are designing a EUPHORIA++ here.

Cheers!
Shawn

kbochert at ix.netcom.com wrote:
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> 
> Hi Shawn Pringle, you wrote on 1/29/02 1:30:25 PM:
> 
> >
> >When it comes to changing something that is so simple and clean I
> >cringe.  Euphoria was been around a long time with out many changes had
> >bugs which must have been many years old.  When languages change
> >programs break and implementations break.  The new bugs might show up in
> >the interpreter or the 'compiler'.  Many proposed changes are features
> >of C that people want in EUPHORIA because they are used to C.
> >Things that need features in C are not needed in EUPHORIA:
> >
> >For Example:
> >Pass by reference:
> >
> >scanf would be something like
> >procedure sscanf( sequence str, sequence fmt, sequence& inputs )
> >
> >On the other hand, in today's EUPHORIA the same thing can be implemented
> >with
> >function sscanf( sequence str, sequence fmt ) -- return user input
> >
> >
> >Regards,
> >Shawn Pringle
> >
> As I see it, there are 2 advantages to pass-by-reference:
> 
> 1) More efficient.
>    foo = modify(foo)  -- involves a couple of copy operations
>    modify (!!foo)	 -- modifies in place (my pass-by-reference syntax)
> 
> 2) Object orientation
>    Methods are automatically passed the instance they are
>    to work on ('this')  as the first parameter. Methods which
>    modify the instance and also return a value are extremely
>    awkward without 'this' beng passed by reference.
> 
> It adds complexity and power, but it does indeed compromise the
> simplicity that makes Euphoria so attractive.
> 
> Karl Bochert
> 
> 
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> 



Regards,
Shawn Pringle