On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:31 PM, André Thieme
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On 30 Nov., 23:58, "Mark Volkmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting. I was only referring
>> to expressions entered in a REPL, not expressions in a file of Clojure
>> code.
>
> I understood that part and explained why this wouldn't work.
> Not in the REPL, not in a .clj file.
>
>> At the REPL it would be easy to check whether the single line
>> entered is surrounded by parens and add them if they are missing.
>
> Not really easy. If you think it is, do it here:
>
> user> a b c d e
>
> Okay, before the a there must be one, and after the e.
> But what if b is a function?
> Will it then be (a (b) c d e)?
> Or did the user want to say (a (b c d) e)?
> Or some other combination?
> It really is not obvious.
> What is the result of
> user> * + 1 2 3 4 5
> ?
> Clojure could think it is 120, because
> (* (+ 1 2 3) 4 5) ==> 120
> But damn, it may also be 50 <== (* (+ 1 2 3 4) 5).
>
> As I said in my previous posting, as soon functions
> are in the game that take any number of arguments it
> is not obvious anymore where to place the parens.
>
> Sure, we could add a shortcut to explain where a new
> function call begins. Maybe with the $ sign, as our
> function application symbol:
> user> $a b $c d e
>
> But we still don't know where it ends. So we could
> simply tell the repl how many args go into a function:
> user> $3a b $1c d e
> Now it is 100% clear how to set the parens:
> (a b (c d) e)
> a has three args: a, (c d) and e
> c gets one: d
> But it looks ugly as hell. And: it's two markers.
> The function application operator $ and the second is
> the count of args that we give.
> Lisp already has that, in form of a "(" and also a
> ")". This looks much better.I only meant omitting the first and last parens, not ones in the middle of the expression. For example, if you meant (a b (c d) e) then you'd be able to enter it as a b (c d) e I thought that made sense because almost everything you enter in a REPL (except symbol evaluations) begin and end with parens. But symbol evaluations are important. I wouldn't want to mess that up, so this proposal seems like a no go. -- R. Mark Volkmann Object Computing, Inc. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
