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Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 10:47:03 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <20021029.104703.59470751.avv@quasar.ipa.nw.ru>
To: Gerard.Huet@inria.fr
Cc: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] CamlP4 Revised syntax comment
From: "Alexander V.Voinov" <avv@quasar.ipa.nw.ru>
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Hi =


From: G=E9rard Huet <Gerard.Huet@inria.fr>
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] CamlP4 Revised syntax comment
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 19:15:02 +0100

> >> match a with
> >> | 0 ->
> >> | n ->
> >> end
> >
> > I second this.
> >
> > Alexander
> >
> =

> Frankly,
> I do not think that design of a programming language (or any reasonab=
ly =

> complex
> scientific activity) can be seriously accomplished by exchanges throu=
gh a
> large mailing list using random criteria of taste and distaste. =


I agree completely. Here I only meant that a closing 'parenthesis' for
the match construction is desired. I don't use revised syntax and don't=
 know it,
but in the standard syntax you have to use parentheses over the entire =
'match...'
to resolve ambiguity.

Of course a masterpiece cannot be created by a referendum. :-)

> I personally believe that syntax, and notation in general, is importa=
nt. =


Me too. BTW quite recently I made a presentation on FP in my company,
and one slide just showed two equivalent programs in Python and OCaml
side by side. This slide was crucial in the overall receiption of the
presentation.  My colleagues got a feeling that FP is not _that_ weird
(as one would infer from the previous slides ;-) after all. (Here in
biotech we use Python very intensively.)

> Important
> for guiding intuition consistently with the semantics, =


Especially when you promote the language among skillful users of some
other language be it C or Ada or Python.

WBR

Alexander
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