From: Nat Pryce <nat.pryce@...13media.com>
Date: 2002-10-31T00:41:00+09:00
Subject: Re: feature idea: custom literals

On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 14:02, Nikodemus Siivola wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Nat Pryce wrote:
> 
> > And how would custom literals be scoped?  Suppose one Ruby module
> 
> Per file.

Either you misunderstand me, or I misunderstand you...

How would you import a literal definition?  If you define it in a file,
can it only be used within a file?  Or can it be imported into another
file (by the require statement for example)?

If the former, then a programmer would have to keep redefining the
literal everywhere that they want to use it, which is bad programming
practice.

If the latter, then what do you do about clashing definitions?  Ruby has
modules to manage name clash.  How would a literal definition work with
modules?  By the very fact that literals are *syntax*, they are
processed before modules are used for name resolution, which is a
semantic issue.

Personally, I think that the best languages are those with the smallest
amount of syntax, but where that syntax can be used and combined in very
flexible ways.  E.g. Lisp, Scheme, Smalltalk or Haskell.

Cheers,
	Nat.
-- 
Dr. Nathaniel Pryce, Technical Director, B13media Ltd.
Studio 3a, 22-24 Highbury Grove, London N5 2EA, UK
http://www.b13media.com