On Mon, 03 Dec 2012 04:02:15 -0000, Timon Gehr <[email protected]> wrote:
On 12/02/2012 09:19 PM, Regan Heath wrote:
On Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:47:26 -0000, Rob T <[email protected]> wrote:
If someone can honestly demonstrate a non-subjective reason why there
must be a difference between function call and variable assignments,
please show it. So far I've only seen arguments that boil down to "I
don't like it".
A variable assignment is in 99% of cases a simple operation. A function
call is in 99% of cases a more complex operation. Being able to
immediately "see" those costs is useful. A language which allows you to
make variable assignments costly will be inherently harder to understand
in terms of cost, than a language which does not.
R
Costs are understood by profiling and/or detailed analysis, not by
looking at trivial syntactic properties.
Exact costs, yes. But syntactic properties can, and have historically
also given a good indication of costs and this is useful. Removing that,
is less than useful and potentially surprising.
Compare that to what you gain from this change.. nothing useful that I can
see.
Making variable assignments and function calls look the same buys you
nothing, you're trying to make apples and oranges look like oranges and
hide all the nice, useful, detail and distinction you get from having both
assignments (oranges) and function calls (apples) and all that they imply.
R
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