Hello Readables,
I propose that, in the 0.3 released spec, we reserve some symbols for
future syntactic purposes, so that if ever we decide to add new
syntactic stuff, we have a small pool we can use. Also, users of the
syntax can avoid these symbols.
For now, I think we can reasonably say that the following pool of
one-character symbols are currently reserved pending finalization of
the GROUP/SPLICE/SPLIT/ENLIST discussion.
~
\
.
How about adding these to the pool?
!
$
Looking at my keyboard, the following are probably not good for syntax:
@ - used by newer Guile's for explicit module access.
# - common usage by most Lisp's for reader extensions/special syntax
% - possibly interpreted as modulo (remainder) computation
^ - possibly interpreted as either exponentiation or XOR
& - possibly interpreted as AND
* - multiplication
() - oh come on
_ - useful for denoting dummy variables / unused arguments
= - comparison
+ - addition
| - possibly interpreted as OR, also Common Lisp special symbol syntax
[] {} - oh come on
: - empty keyword/nameless keyword
/ - division
? - empty keyword/nameless keyword in Cadence Skill.
< > - comparison
So - if $ and ! are used for something in some Lisp or Scheme or
something, we might consider not adding them to the pool of things we
would like to reserve.
Note that these are entire symbols, not characters - they function as
syntax only if they are followed by any whitespace (horizontal or
vertical). So Arc's ~foo is safe since ~ by itself doesn't have a
very special meaning there (arguably it makes it a little confusing,
but still).
(as an aside, back when I was in the Arc community, we redefined ~ by
itself to be "not". Back then PG didn't pay any attention at all to
the Arc community so I doubt if that redefinition got into mainline
Arc)
Sincerely,
AmkG
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