On 1/26/2015 3:07 PM, Jonathan Marler wrote:
Walter I hate to waste your time in answering my silly questions. I know you have a much deeper knowledge and understanding of the language then I. I can see that you believe my suggestion would create some unnecessary complexity ("It's like using a nail for a cotter pin"), however, I can't see how it would so I'm going to ask another question. I can see that you are trying to save time from your short responses so I'll understand if I understand if you feel I'm a lost cause and do not respond again.You said you strongly dislike "context-sensitive" tokens but I still don't know exactly what you mean by "context-sensitive". You said a token is "context-sensitive" if it is "A keyword in one context and an identifier in another". However, since I'm not proposing that "save" and "nogc" be keywords in any context, this doesn't appear to fall under your definition. So I must assume your real definition is more general. However, if the definition is too general then couldn't you consider almost any token "context-sensitive". For example, the token "static" or "ref" have different meanings depending on their context, so are they "context-sensitive"? Yes they are still keyword tokens, but "safe" and "nogc" would still just be regular id tokens so what makes "safe" and "nogc" more "context-sensitive" then "static" and "ref"? I'm honestly trying to understand. I can see from how the grammar works that you don't agree my solution is a good one, but I'm failing to understand why. I fail to see how allowing a function to be decorated with id tokens is more complex then only allowing keywords. Also sorry for harping on definitions, I majored in Computer Science and Mathematics...having strict definitions comes from my days of writing endless proofs.
Your argument boils down to there are no such things as token keywords. Yes, you can make a language work like that. I've seen it done. It is awful. The solution is clear:
static is a keyword. You can NEVER use it as an identifier. Same with all other keywords.
