Control words also work as line separators.
So introducing a no-op control word (perhaps a single letter followed
by a dot) would scratch most of that itch.
Making control words work outside of explicit definitions (either this
single example, or maybe a more complete entourage) would require more
extensive changes, comparable in scope perhaps to the [{ }} effort.
But maybe that's worth doing also?
As for a line joiner... I'm tempted to suggest nb. followed by
arbitrary text which would be ignored. My experience with multi-line
expressions is that it becomes quite annoying to comment them. And we
could head that off by making the line joiner also be a comment to
end-of-physical-line "token".
The line joiner would also be "explicit only" unless (at least some)
explicit syntax was allowed at the command line.
Thanks,
--
Raul
On Sat, Apr 1, 2023 at 5:26 AM Elijah Stone <elro...@elronnd.net> wrote:
>
> Some time ago, Michal proposed that a line separator be added. I want to
> rekindle that discussion. The proposal was that .. behave like a line break
> when placed on a single line, such that e.g. {{ a=. y+y .. a }} 2 would do the
> obvious thing. Short, distinctive, and to the point.
>
> I also want to propose a line _joiner_, analogous to \ in shell or c: ...,
> placed at the beginning or end of a line should join it with the previous or
> next. Joining lines happens _after_ stripping comments, unlike the other
> languages I cited; the goal is to enable large, multi-line definitions with
> commentary for intermediate terms, without the need for pointless intermediate
> definitions.
>
> It might be objectionable to use such similar symbols for separators and
> joiners. But maybe it's not such a big deal. Two more ideas:
>
> 1. Could use the _same_ symbol for both, with its sense depending on where
> it's placed in a line.
>
> 2. Separator could be .:.; metaphor: a hill stops the interpreter in its
> tracks.
>
> I don't like 2 because the larger the separator is, the more annoying it is to
> use. Joiner can afford to be large, since it only comes into play if the rest
> of the line is sufficiently large.
>
> Anyway--thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?
>
> -E
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