On Nov 22, 2007 8:48 PM, Damien Pollet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> bad reply-to, sorry for the double answer, Waldemar

No problem. It supports my suggestion to change the mailing list's
reply-to settings. ;)

> > Actually, those precedence rules make formulas easier to read.
>
> The absence of precedence between operators is a small price to pay,
> because you gain minimality, consistency, and semantics at the right
> level: messages sent to objects, not some domain-specific
> "mathematical" operation.

I do understand that you like this kind of elegance, but I think the
price to pay is pretty high because it increases the likelihood of
mistakes (in either math or Smalltalk "mode"). Modality is a
well-known cause of errors and should be avoided. Precedence could
simply apply to +-*/, so nothing complex to learn.

Ian, what do you think?

> Anyway in [CL]OLA, ometa makes it possible to redefine syntax, so you
> could perfectly have (usual-maths 2+3*4) or
> (some-algebra-with-unusual-precedence-and-associativity ...)

Yep, but it would be nice to have this functionality on by default, so
everyone benefits from consistent math precedence rules. Doing this in
only my code would lead to even more confusion.

Bye,
Waldemar Kornewald

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