Why bother with a reader macro, when you can use a normal macro?
(infix (2 * x1 * x2) / (x1 + x2))
IMO, the times when it makes sense to use infix notation are fairly few,
anyway. One could write the above as:
(/ (* 2 x1 x2)
(+ x1 x2))
Which to me actually seems more readable than the infix version.
The other problem with your proposal is that Clojure's reader is almost all
about parsing data. What data does this infix notation represent? It
doesn't represent anything new, just a different way of writing lists.
Imagine if you proposed something similar for JSON. Would it make sense to
have an infix notation syntax for a data-only syntax? If not, then it
probably doesn't make sense for Clojure.
- James
On 4 April 2014 05:17, Joshua Brulé <jtcbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Proposal:
>
> For an *odd* number of forms a, x, b, ...
>
> {a x b x c ...} => (x a b c ...)
> {a x b y c ...} => (*nfx* a x b y c ...)
>
> Reasoning:
>
> Even after a lot of practice, prefix math is still harder (at least for
> me...) to read than non-prefix math. The [], () and <> matching delimiters
> are already taken, but {} is only used for an even number of forms (and, in
> fact, throws an exception on an odd number of forms.)
>
> ; trumped-up examples
> (defn harmonic-mean [x1 x2]
> {{2 * x1 * x2} / {x1 + x2}})
>
> (defn fib [n]
> (cond
> {n = 0} 1
> {n = 1} 1
> :else {(fib {n - 1}) + (fib {n - 2})}))
>
> Basically, I'm claiming a solid win on readability, and no risk of
> breaking any existing code.
>
> I realize there's a certain risk of mistaking curly-infix for a map
> literal when reading code, but I think it's minimal. To me, at least, {x +
> y} just doesn't look like a map.
>
> Thoughts?
>
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