On 2008-12-01, at 11:30EST, Mark S. Miller wrote:
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 7:31 AM, P T Withington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 2008-11-30, at 01:30EST, Brendan Eich wrote:
// Instead of lambda (a, b, c) { ... }, why not:
{ |a, b, c| ... } ?
I would rather have a more literate syntax, lest we degenerate to
where
practically any comic book blasphemy is a valid program.
(BTW, I'm pretty sure I have that same Byte issue, in a similar
box, with a
similar musty smell, _and_ "the blue book". Back then, worrying
that 'line
noise' or the death throes of your modem hanging up would write
code for you
was a legitimate concern. Today, it is just my old eyes that might
gloss
over `{||` and wonder why the `var`s in that block are not visible
in the
enclosing function...)
Since it's a lambda, the 'var's will be visible in the enclosing
function.
Eh? So:
function () {
var foo = 42;
{|| var foo = 3; }
return foo;
}
and:
function () {
var foo = 42;
{ var foo = 3; }
return foo;
}
Give the same answer?
The point of having a very compact syntax for lambda is too make it
pleasant
to write control abstractions, as one does casually in Smalltalk.
With the
verbose "lambda" spelling, people will avoid those, or invent macro
systems
(as Scheme programmers do) mostly so they can avoid seeing all those
extra
"lambda" letters in the code.
Think of lambdas as blocks plus a bit more, rather than function
minus a
bit. Viewed this way, their block-like syntax is a virtue.
I agree with the goal of compactness. I just don't like it to be too
compact. Call me a curmudgeon. I don't like that `not` is spelt `!`
or that it is so easy to make a one-letter misspelling of `eql` and
end up with `setq` either.
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