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From: Adam Michalik on 20 Oct 2009 12:37
Anti Vigilante <antivigilante(a)pyrabang.com> writes:

> You know the irony of it all is that the fear of parens is caused by
> countless times leaving out a ;, a ,, or a }. (intended (on (pun
> punctuation). There is no syntax other than differentiation of symbols
> and association of symbols into operations.
>
> The debate over infix versus prefix has some limited substance. On the
> one hand all languages use prefix: function(arg, arg). The trouble is
> the Yoda principle:
>
> Sometimes infix feels like Yoda: Have you ever seen this, "filename open
> 'rw'" or "file transfer local from storage remote to storage"?
>
> If it were a network diagram it would almost make sense except local and
> storage and remote and storage belong together.
>
> Other times prefix feels like Yoda: (with (cut ((the lieutenant) (his
> (lieutenant chicken)) (and ((a knife) fork)))
>
> Funny way to say, "The lieutenant cut his chicken with a knife and
> fork."
>
> Infix makes the object do the action (instead of you or the computer)
> while prefix forces you to find the beginning of the sentence buried
> somewhere in the middle.
>
> It's a wash. They both fail. I would say though that prefix usually gets
> unscrambled as you stop looking at words as being important and allow
> them to just be simple details. The clarity that emerges from crossing
> that threshold is beyond the limits of stop and go driving offered by
> infix.
>
> Granted, if we had one list per line and two newlines signified end of
> list, the parens could go away as well.
>
> I tried to replace parens with a _#SPACE, #SPACE_ based read macro but I
> couldn't figure out how to write the thing.
>
> Read macros are the machine language of lisp. (Eval is closer to
> assembly). You can't test the macro half way through. You have to do
> things in blocks of two: Take care of opening and closing or you will
> have to start over from scratch.
>

When I was learning read macros and parsing, I've written a macro which
translates

foo(bar, baz).bax(xyzzy)

to

(bax (foo bar baz) xyzzy)

When I showed it to a person who was unfamilar with Lisp, he said:

"Oh, I did not know that Lisp is object oriented!"

This's something Java taught the programming community - OOP is a dot
after an expression.

--
Adam Michalik
vel Dodek Dodecki
<dodek[]dodecki.net>
From: Aatu Koskensilta on 20 Oct 2009 12:36
Anti Vigilante <antivigilante(a)pyrabang.com> writes:

> The debate over infix versus prefix has some limited substance. On the
> one hand all languages use prefix: function(arg, arg).

Yes, general function application is almost always written in prefix,
but e.g. Agda allows mixfix syntax for user-defined functions, so that
we can write, say,

if_then_else_ : {A : Set} -> Bool -> A -> A -> A
if true then x else y = x
if false then x else y = y

--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.koskensilta(a)uta.fi)

"Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
From: vippstar on 20 Oct 2009 13:58
On Oct 20, 7:37 pm, Adam Michalik <dode...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> This's something Java taught the programming community - OOP is a dot
> after an expression.

If it weren't for Java, everyone would know programming.
From: Robert Uhl on 20 Oct 2009 15:42
vippstar <vippstar(a)gmail.com> writes:
>
> If it weren't for Java, everyone would know programming.

If it weren't for Java, programs would be written.

--
Robert A. Uhl
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and
persuade themselves that they have a better idea. --John Ciardi
From: Kaz Kylheku on 20 Oct 2009 16:25
On 2009-10-20, Adam Michalik <dodecki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> This's something Java taught the programming community - OOP is a dot
> after an expression.

No; it's what Simula 67 taught the programming community. But not directly;
it was the ghost of Simula 67, channeled by Stroustrup in the form of C++:

[ Wikipedia Simula Example ]

Begin
Class Glyph;
Virtual: Procedure print Is Procedure print;;
Begin
End;

Glyph Class Char (c);
Character c;
Begin
Procedure print;
OutChar(c);
End;

Glyph Class Line (elements);
Ref (Glyph) Array elements;
Begin
Procedure print;
Begin
Integer i;
For i:= 1 Step 1 Until UpperBound (elements, 1) Do
elements (i).print;
OutImage;
End;
End;

Ref (Glyph) rg;
Ref (Glyph) Array rgs (1 : 4);

! Main program;
rgs (1):- New Char ('A');
rgs (2):- New Char ('b');
rgs (3):- New Char ('b');
rgs (4):- New Char ('a');
rg:- New Line (rgs);
rg.print;
End;

Look, construction with new, virtual functions, obj.member_function syntax.

Now Java was introduced as a dumbed down C++ for those who can't handle the
read thing.
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