From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id UAA22572; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 20:28:12 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA22587 for ; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 20:28:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from relay.pair.com (relay.pair.com [209.68.1.20]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id h38IS8929705 for ; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 20:28:09 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 2855 invoked from network); 8 Apr 2003 18:28:06 -0000 Received: from arda.pair.com (HELO compaqreview.d6.com) (209.68.1.133) by relay.pair.com with SMTP; 8 Apr 2003 18:28:06 -0000 X-pair-Authenticated: 209.68.1.133 Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20030408110617.0389bde8@localhost> X-Sender: checker@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2003 11:23:12 -0800 To: Brian Hurt From: Chris Hecker Subject: Re: [Caml-list] single-line comment request Cc: Nickolay Semyonov-Kolchin , Brian Hurt , In-Reply-To: References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030408091635.037a29b0@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed X-Spam: no; 0.00; hecker:01 checker:01 caml-list:01 noticeably:01 multiline:01 nontrivial:01 avoiding:01 chris:01 caml:01 token:01 complexity:02 nested:02 macros:03 fire:96 library:03 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk > > Actually, just to fuel the fire, it's not just stylish. Single-line > > comments are sometimes easier to work with programmatically >Not noticeably in my experience. Hmm, well I guess I have different experiences from you on this front. This is starting to become a "you don't need that" argument. The backwards compatibility argument is the only one you've given that has any actual technical objectivity behind it, and it's pretty weak because almost every iteration of caml isn't backwards compatible (if not in core language, then library functions, etc.) and I want it that way and think they should accelerate that. Much better to get changes out of the way now than later when caml is more popular. As for editor macros and parsing, I'm familiar with my editor, thanks. The point is you need to write no macros when doing a lot of operations with single line comments, versus having to write macros to handle things as easily with multiline. That indicates a complexity for operations that you don't seem to acknowledge. If you're at a different editor and don't have your macros, who's better off? And, the macros are nontrivial in the cases of mixed length code and nested comments and whatnot. A lot of operations are just more complicated with bracketed comments since you have to keep state [that standard regexs can't handle]. I don't see how you can argue the contrary. There's really no downside that I can see to supporting them besides minor backwards compatibility (but hey, if you want to port back, just write an editor macro to convert them since you argue they're so easy! :), using another token, and somebody has to go implement them. There are many minor upsides, including a bunch that haven't been listed like avoiding questions about this topic on the list, and matching people's intuition from C++, etc. It seems like a clear win to me. Chris ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners