I'll speak up in favor of ditching both "const" and "static" for "global".
global foo: int = 1;
global mut bar: int = 1;
&'global baz
(Though not sure exactly what the 'static region is, does that last one
make sense?)
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 3:44 PM, Graydon Hoare <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> At today's meeting we had a a discussion about two issues that
> intersect, oddly, at a particular point of the syntax. The two issues are:
>
> - Removing the 'static lifetime-name -- currently used to denote
> the lifetime of consts -- since the only other use of the word
> (static fn ...) is going away when we finish with explicit-self;
> renaming it (probably) to 'const since that's the word used to
> introduce consts!
>
> - Adding mutable globals (unsafe-to-access, but needed in some
> corner cases for mutexes and such). This is an old bug
> (two years! https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues/553 ) that
> we've long assumed we'd have to implement eventually.
>
> We agreed to do the former (rename 'static to 'const) and collapse all
> uses of the word "const" to mean this "read-only-memory" thing. But then
> when pushing around possible syntaxes for mutable globals, such as the
> following not-so-charming options:
>
> let mut x : T = v; // like in functions, but different since
> the RHS must be a const and can refer to
> values declared-after it.
>
> const mut x : T = v; // adding a modifier to 'const' but one that
> reads somewhat absurdly: "constant mutable"?
>
> unsafe mut x : T = v; // more random choices...
>
> We stumbled on the _opposite_ possibility for const-vs-static: maybe we
> should be retiring the "const" keyword and standardizing on "static",
> for both mutable and immutable. The following cases would then fall out:
>
> static x : T = v; // constant init, immutable, like const today
>
> static mut x : T = v; // constant init, mutable, unsafe to access
>
> With values in that scope having 'static lifetime, and the word "const"
> no longer appearing anywhere in the language.
>
> There are other options, probably, that we did not consider. Some people
> suggested putting "global" in there instead of "static". Some suggested
> going back to "var" rather than "let".
>
> This is an intentional (brief) request for a little syntax
> bikeshed-discussion to see if anything else occurs to anyone, or if
> anyone has strong reactions / preferences / thoughts to any of the above
> options. We recognize that this does not _exactly_ align with the
> meanings of the highly-overloaded words "const" or "static" in C/C++,
> but think that there's some keyword and concept overlap here that can
> probably be minimized.
>
> (Maybe reply for only a couple days and we'll summarize opinions and
> pick something thereafter. No need for it to drag on forever.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Graydon
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>
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