On 23-Nov-07, at 3:56 AM, Waldemar Kornewald wrote:
Let's stop thinking in terms of implementation complexity (math precedence won't add much, anyway) and start thinking in terms of how to make computers easier, more natural, and less error-prone for end-users (in this case, programmers using COLA).
You seem to take it as a given that using the precedence rules of arithmetic is easier, more natural and less error-prone than simple left to right precedence, but it's not obvious to me that this is the case.
Yes, mode switches can lead to errors. It would seem that the way to minimize those errors would be to make mode switches less frequent and more obvious, so that people are less likely to find themselves in the wrong mode. Given that, it seems to me that consistency between writing "arithmetic messages" and writing "non-arithmetic code" is more important than between writing code and writing mathematical notation.
That seems obvious to me, but then I don't write code that's especially heavy on arithmetic, nor do I jump back and forth between writing code on the computer and writing equations on a blackboard. But maybe that's just me...
Colin _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
