At Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:39:33 -0400, Neil Van Dyke wrote: > How about symbols beginning with ":" be read as keywords, as if they > began with "#:"? > > I want to use keyword arguments in my libraries, but "#:" is big and > scary-looking, and a pain to type.
I don't think that "#:" is scary or a pain to type, and I like the way that it stands out a bit. But I respect your opinion, and I know that many others prefix a ":" prefix. Of course, there are also people who feel that a ":" suffix is the only sensible choice. (I don't know how big the various camps are. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I'll take a poll on the plt-scheme list.) I see no substantial technical advantage for any of the choices of syntax, but there's a significant advantage in picking just one. All else being equal, a single syntax makes the language easier to learn, documentation easier to read, parsers easier to implement and extend, etc. So, while I'm unsure that "#:" should be the syntax of keywords forever, I'm sure that I don't want to support an additional ":" prefix right now. _________________________________________________ For list-related administrative tasks: http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-dev
