From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@...>
Date: 2003-04-25T22:36:05+09:00
Subject: Re: How to call an object instance's method?

On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 10:17:21PM +0900, dblack@superlink.net wrote:
> > The latter would make the language less C-like, and would force you to write
> >
> >     (sin a) + b
> >
> > instead of
> >
> >     sin(a) + b
> >
> > What do people think of that??
> 
> I don't like the latter (the disallowing of parens), partly because it
> would mean starting from scratch in terms of existing code, and partly
> because I think parens are useful for clarity.

I think clarity is certainly the problem here. Are parens just part of the
expression which follows the method name, or do they mark the start and end
of the argument list? It's not a problem in C because they are compulsory
around the argument list. If they were forbidden it would be fine too. But
if they are optional then we get into this mess.

I'd be happy to go back to 1.6.8 behaviour; the 1.8.0p2 behaviour will break
old code too.

FWIW Perl takes the 1.6.8 view:

  perl -e 'print(-3-4)*2'     #>> -7
  perl -e 'print (-3-4)*2'    #>> -7

Regards,

Brian.