> I don't want to be a spoilsport, but I'm slowly beginning to think > that Factor's syntax is growing too much and specialising a lot. > It might aid quick typing, but it is too much to remember when > reading someone else's code. Every time I'm looking through the > standard library > I find new syntaxes and it leaves me pretty disappointed that I > can't really do *much* without knowing quite a lot of it. > > Do we really want another Perl? > > Note: I'm new to factor, and my comments probably mean nothing.
No, you raise a good point, and the "too much syntax" concern was one of the reasons I wanted to ask before blindly steamrolling ahead with the idea. While new syntax words are useful for the writer, they're added mental overhead for everyone else who subsequently has to read the code. I think Factor has a leg up on Perl in the unfamiliar-syntax department in that it's straightforward to say "\ <*&[EMAIL PROTECTED] help" and get, if not documentation, at least the definition of an unfamiliar word. Factor's fundamental syntax is regular (whitespace-separated words), so there's little doubt where one atom ends and the next begins, and it's easy to know what to ask for help about. For a Perl noob, looking up what '$#$foo' means requires first knowing that '$#' and '$' are separate, uh, thingies (as opposed to '$' '#' '$' or '$' '# $', which could all be potential breakdowns as far as a neophyte is concerned), then figuring out which perl* manpage talks about thingies that go in front of variable names; oh, and by the way, there's a dereference operation implicit in the juxtaposition of $# and $ so you need to know how those insane "reference" things work, and . . . Factor has a way to go before it's at that level. -Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project, along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 _______________________________________________ Factor-talk mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/factor-talk
