[nem-en] Parentheses

[Michal Moskal]

On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 01:17:38PM +0200, Maurizio Colucci wrote:
> Ah, now I see what you mean. But that is not necessary: that is just the way 
> haskell/ocaml happen to treat that syntax. Nemerle doesn't need to do that. I 
> mean, you don't need to support the concept of partial application to allow 
> that syntax. You could even put a preprocessing step that translates
> 
> f g (h x);
> 
> into
> 
> f(g, h(x));
> 
> , that is, completely mechanically. That's why I don't understand why Michal 
> says the ocaml syntax is more ambiguous. To me, there seems to be one-to-one 
> correspondence.

f x + 1. It's far from obvious what's going on here. Of course there is
a rule, it's (f x) + 1, but this is not obvious.

> I agree that is SLIGHTLY more difficult to understand which is the functor and 
> which is the argument, but you quickly learn, and the ocaml idiom always has 
> one parenthesis less.

Nope:

  f (x + 1) (x - 1) (v * 12)

vs:

  f (x + 1, x - 1, v * 12)

> Which is much desirable, considering that MOST OF THE 
> TIME you write things that needs only one parenthesis:
> 
> Nemerle:
> 
> def x = f(y, z);
> 
> ocaml:
> 
> let x = f y z;
> 
> This is a simplification that really makes your life easier, on the long run. 
> Consider it takes two minutes to get used to the ocaml idiom, whereas you 
> have to type parentheses more for the rest of your life. :-)

For me, typing is not the most timeconsuming part of programming.

But again, you will be able to implement this as a macro, when the new
parser is completed.

-- 
: Michal Moskal :: http://www.kernel.pl/~malekith :: GCS !tv h e>+++ b++
: ::: Logic is a nice contrast to the Real World. :: UL++++$ C++ E--- a?