On 08/20/2011 08:21 PM, bearophile wrote:
Timon Gehr:
In some cases, shadowing can be handy for code generation via string
mixins (the shadowing that is disallowed, not the shadowing of globals).
Making the language more forbidding makes the generation of code simpler. But
it's simpler to write code that generates correct code, than for humans to
write bug-free code. So it's much more important to design the language to be
good (not bug-prone) to be written by hand.
Bye,
bearophile
Actually, since some forms of shadowing are still allowed, it makes the
generation of code slightly more complex. If your other statement holds
true, we can as well allow shadowing and require all code to be wrapped
inside a string mixin instead :o). I consider code generation via string
mixins something the language is worth optimizing for, because it is so
useful. Fighting with the compiler about shadowed variables in the
generated code is not pleasant, because you have to resort to ugly
workarounds to make it shut up. (those then may introduce bugs in your
code generating code).
