On Tue, 11 Aug 2020 at 14:15, Peter Bowyer <phpmailingli...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone? > > Why is the discussion fixated on [] rather than ()? > Elsewhere, Derick clarified that he sees a "conceptual/logical" difference between brackets around just the argument list and the brackets around the whole expression, rather than anything concrete to do with parsing. I suspect this is a mental bias because we're used to pairing off ( and ) or [ and ]. If we imagine a straw man syntax with no brackets of any sort: ~~AttributeName:param1,param2! I think everyone would agree that the "!" here ended the attribute declaration, not just the parameter list. But looking closely, that's a one-to-one substitution from @@ with mandatory parens: ~~ <name> : <argument-list> ! @@ <name> ( <argument-list> ) That doesn't mean it's wrong to say there's a different feeling between the two, but does highlight that like every other factor discussed, this is basically a subjective feeling, rather than anything substantial. Regards, -- Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]
