On 1 November 2010 05:04, Levente Uzonyi <leves at elte.hu> wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Nov 2010, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Out of curiosity, i tried to look how it would be hard to change
>> parser to support extended continuation syntax.
>> And it was quite simple, i had to change only single method!
>>
>> A new syntax using double semicolon ';;' to indicate a continuation.
>>
>> So, code like:
>>
>> self foo ;; bar ;; zork
>>
>> is equivalent to:
>>
>> self foo bar zork
>>
>> But when its going to binary, or keyword messages, it allows to write
>> more clean code,
>> because it not requires using parenthesis.
>>
>> For instance:
>>
>> (1/10) asFloat
>>
>> with new syntax can be written as:
>>
>> 1/10 ;; asFloat
>>
>> More complex example:
>>
>> ((self foo: bar) + 10 ) baz
>>
>> can be written as
>>
>> self foo: bar ;; + 10 ;; baz
>>
>>
>> Note, that it is same number of characters to type.. but is much more
>> clean, and less time expensive to code,
>> because when you coding, you usually type first message:
>>
>> self foo: bar `
>>
>> and then you realising that next message is binary and hence you need
>> to go back to beginning of line and put open paren there:
>>
>> `( self foo: bar
>>
>> then again, go to the end of message, and continue typing:
>>
>> ( self foo: bar ` ) + 10
>>
>> ` - is cursor position.
>>
>> so, it is much more keystrokes & navigation than just typing two
>> semicolons :)
>>
>> P.S. don't burn me for my herecy, please :)
>
> This idea comes up every few years. This post sums up well the last attempt:
> http://blog.3plus4.org/2007/08/30/message-chains/ .
>
Yes. I know.

> I don't think it's worth changing the syntax for this. IMHO 1-2 pairs of
> parentheses usually improve readability. More parenthesis is rarely needed.
> Also mixing ;; with ; makes the code harder to understand. Try this: self
> foo ; bar ;; baz ; foo ;; bar ; baz.
>
this is incorrect syntax.


> Note that the term 'continuation' means a totally different thing:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation .
>

It was called so in tiny smalltalk (if i remember), when i first
learned a syntax. You name it.


>
> Levente
>
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig.
>>
>
>



-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.