From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FCDDBC75 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:20:05 +0100 (CET) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j1EEK4OH032562 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:20:04 +0100 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 PAA08597 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:20:04 +0100 (MET) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j1EEK3ui001500 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:20:03 +0100 Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1D0h2g-0006IE-G5 for caml-list@inria.fr; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:17:38 +0100 Received: from toronto-hse-ppp3779007.sympatico.ca ([67.68.217.32]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:17:38 +0100 Received: from monnier by toronto-hse-ppp3779007.sympatico.ca with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:17:38 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: caml-list@inria.fr From: Stefan Monnier Subject: Re: The boon of static type checking Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:19:49 -0500 Message-ID: <87ll9rz0n2.fsf-monnier+gmane.comp.lang.caml.inria@gnu.org> References: <877e9a17050206221653d14456@mail.gmail.com> <20050213112630.73930e19@hobbes> <877e9a1705021312525337a907@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a1705021314512ff095b9@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a1705021316114d4e10f0@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a170502131711122bd34e@mail.gmail.com> <20050214014624.EF42F9BDAB@orchestra.cs.caltech.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: toronto-hse-ppp3779007.sympatico.ca User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:nCnSjUJhzgX8O2o43whmgsfehRw= Sender: news X-Gmane-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-Gmane-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: gclci-caml-list@m.gmane.org X-MailScanner-To: caml-list@inria.fr X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 4210B394.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 4210B393.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; umontreal:01 syntax:01 expansions:01 syntax:01 checking:01 programming:03 static:03 macro:04 style:94 trivially:05 mean:07 arguably:08 depending:09 aren't:11 writing:11 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Level: > But S-expressions are arguably the best syntax for writing macro > expansions. Since an S-expression is trivially parseable and dispatches on That's exactly where syntax is important: depending on your syntax some things are easy/concise and others aren't, so people end up adapting a very different programming style. It doesn't mean that one syntax is intrinsically better than another, but just that syntax does matter. Stefan