Re: Re: Re: Lightweight syntax: a dissident view

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Gunnar Zötl <gz@tset.de> wrote:
> I dunno, I think it would be a proper start to determine what is actually wanted here. There seem to be two major use cases that keep coming up, one being delayed evaluation as illustrated in a previous post, and one being the ability to define function arguments to other functions in place. Maybe they should be tackled separately.

This is a good point.  One criticism of lightweight syntax (whether
delayed/lazy evaluation or short-form functions) is that there is a
distinct cost in creating closures. I actually think my example would
be bad in practice, because it would generate a lot of closures; I've
heard that Lua 5.2 can optimize closure re-use but this is something
to bear in mind.

Personally, I'd settle for a mature version of the token-filter patch
being accepted. Then one can do just about anything (which is probably
the most common criticism ;)) including \x(x+1).

(apart from it being so 1980s etc)

steve d.