It's often hard to describe some (I'd say most) of the Scala syntax if you want to search for an answer online.
It would be great if the eclipse plugin can tell you what the code is trying to do and what kind of syntax is that, for example, linking an operator back to a method name. On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 6:27 AM, bob <rbpas...@gmail.com> wrote: > > i believe that one of the best ways to learn a new programming > language is to read software written in it > > when reading Scala code, I rarely say "i don't understand how that > works" and when I do, there's usually a good explanation of it > somewhere on the web. > > usually I find myself asking "where is that defined?" or "what part of > the language is that?" > > Scala is not like, for example, BASIC, where you can look up FOR, IF/ > THEN/ELSE. there's lots of individual and compound punctuation marks > that are very difficult to search for online and in PDFs (try > searching for "!"). > > a lot of scala also relies on syntactic sugar, such as omitted types > (no ": T" after a val/var/def); the dreaded underbar; operator > overloading; and implicit conversions. you can hate on Java's > verbosity (i know i have), but brevity has its own difficulties. > > On Oct 22, 11:44 pm, Naftoli Gugenheim <naftoli...@gmail.com> wrote: >> The last use of _, as in empty_?, is not a special scala meaning. As on >> Java, underscores can be part of an identifier. Scala takes advantage of >> this to combine letters and symbols in one name. These names, like empty_?, >> are a Lift convention, as well as ..._! for use-with-care methods. The scala >> library uses isEmpty. David, is it your original convention?. >> >> ------------------------------------- >> >> tiro<tim.romb...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> > override def validations = validPriority _ :: super.validations >> >> funny, I had stumbled on exactly the same line of code when beginning. >> Took me more than a day to understand what's going on. Especially >> because when you copied code from the PDF version of the Liftbook/Lift >> getting started guide, it would mess up spaces, so I would keep >> loooking for a "_::" operator. >> The Scala guys have really pushed it a bit hard on the use of the >> underscore. At least four different uses: >> - "it" for defining anonymous functions like above >> - default value >> - matching placeholder whose value is ignored >> - use for constructing setter method names boolean functions (empty_?) > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lift" group. To post to this group, send email to liftweb@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to liftweb+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/liftweb?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
