On Thursday, 30 August 2018 at 00:10:42 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
On Wednesday, 29 August 2018 at 22:18:09 UTC, Everlast wrote:
No it is not! you have simply accepted it to be fact, which
doesn't make it consistent.
If you take 100 non-programmers(say, mathematicians) and ask
them what is the natural extension of allowing an arbitrary
number of parameters knowing that A is a type and [] means
array and ... means an arbitrary number of, they will NOT
think A[]... makes sense.
Has anyone actually done such a survey? If not, how can you
possibly be sure what the result will be?
If I'm wrong, then you have to prove why a syntax such as
bar(int a...) cannot be interpreted singularly in the way I
have specified.
Of course, there's no inherent reason why `bar(int a...)`
couldn't be interpreted the way you've specified. But there's
also no reason why we couldn't use `bar(int... a)`, like Java,
or `bar(params int[] a)`, like C#, or any of the other syntaxes
you can see if you visit the Rosetta Code page on variadic
functions. [1]
All programming languages are artificial. All syntax is
arbitrary. What feels "natural" to you is not a universal
truth, but a matter of personal taste and preference. To an
experienced Scheme programmer, `(foo . args)` probably feels
more natural than any of the examples I've mentioned. To an
experienced APL programmer, the entire idea of a separate
syntax for variadic functions probably sounds ridiculous.
This is not true! You claim that I'm making a blanket statement
about what mathematicians would view then you do the same.
Not everything in the universe is arbitrary(if so, prove it! ;)
In any case, even if you were right, there is still a partial
ordering of nationality based on other things that are
pre-existing.
Personally, I find the most pragmatic approach to be "when in
Rome, do as the Romans do." So when I'm programming in D, I
write `foo(int[] a...)`, and when I'm programming in Python, I
write `foo(*args)`, and when I'm programming in C, I write
`foo(...)` and `#include <stdarg.h>`. If your goal is to solve
actual problems, arguing about syntactic minutiae is a waste of
time.
This may be true but it also leads to doing what Romans do such
as wiping their asses which rocks. It is only necessary if you
don't have anything else but it doesn't mean there isn't a better
way. The only reason why programing languages allow flaws(that
then become "Features") is for "backwards compatibility".
To put this to rest: I'll make a D fork where it simply requires
all characters of the input to be duplicated(so it simply removes
every other character in the source then passes it to the D
compiler)...
You wouldn't claim that the fork is fine because "Do as the
Romans do" logic would you? You would say that it is a pointless
syntax... Hence, you would think just like I'm thinking about the
[]. On some meaningless level you can claim the fork is valid,
but you wouldnn't program in it for obvious reasons.
So, just because [] is a much less obvious issue doesn't change
the fact that, at least so far since you haven't pointed out any
valid reasons why it is necessary, that it is the same
fundamental problem as the D fork described above.
In both cases they are valid syntaxes w.r.t. to the D compiler
and fork resp. and in both cases they are unnecessary syntaxes
that offer nothing new and over complicate things. The the only
reason they seem different is because variadic types are not used
as often as having to double every character.
Also, we are talking about the semantics of ... and not []
ultimately. My point is that by interpreting ... properly there
is no reason to express [] and that this is a D flaw in over
complicating the syntax for no good reason.
If we are just talking about what D requires then there is
nothing to talk about... and that should be obvious.
