Re: Lightweight function syntax (again) Re: [ANN] Lua 5.2.0 (alpha-rc2) now available

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Gavin Wraith <gavin@wra1th.plus.com> writes:

> In message <7F497979-DBC0-481E-BF32-18C4BC76D1FE@grubmah.com> you wrote:
>
>
>> I agree that the pressure tends to have to do with what sort of
>> programming one is trying to engage in with more functional styles
>> being more challenged by Lua's otherwise very pleasant syntax
>
> What we are seeing here are the ripples from the clash, in the early
> 1920s, between traditional mathematical notation [ f(x,y,...) ] and
> that of the new logicians, Schoenfinkel, Curry et al, [f x y ... ]
> whom the mathematical community tended to cold-shoulder till well
> after the coming of computers, Lisp, etc. I love Haskell notation,
> myself, but I can well understand that is not to the taste of others.

Sigh.  It is not a matter of liking Haskell notation or not.  Lua _has_
a syntax already, and that is rooted in the Algol family.

In a similar manner, liking the use of Ada's constraint syntax for
parametrizing generics does not mean it is a good idea to drag that
particular part of Ada's syntax into C++ where it does not really fit
all too well.

Liking Fortran's automatic arithmetic type conversion grid does not mean
that is a good idea to figure out how to make all user-defined types
behave like "complex" with regard to arithmetic type conversions so that
one can implement Fortran in C++, at the cost of being unable to
sensibly define and use _any_ user-defined arithmetic type apart from
complex, in particular not arithmetic types that have nothing do to with
floating point arithmetic.

Again: language design is not about building the largest incongruous
heap of cool syntagmas.

-- 
David Kastrup