Hi Frank, so, which definition of pragmas I should follow? Declarative or executable?
>From what you describe, I'm against it, they are just annotations (a way to convey programmer intention because the code itself is unable to do so). I introduce annotations in a programming language when I can't do otherwise because: the language is deficient in expressing the correct abstractions; or the compiler is too dumb to deduce properties on its own. Now, which one applies to Smalltalk pragmas? Thierry 2015-02-06 11:29 GMT+01:00 Frank Shearar <frank.shea...@gmail.com>: > > > Pragmas don't execute. They're _data_. There is no "calls unknown > sender" because the don't execute. > > Eliot's point is that pragmas _describe_, and then other systems act > on those descriptions. > > They're just like Java or C# attributes, or Python decorators. Only > they're better, because Java/C# attributes can do anything, whereas > pragmas merely describe. > > frank > > >
