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 VAA25281; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 21:53:20 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA25277 for ; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 21:53:18 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from hosting.commandprompt.com ([207.173.200.138]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h38JrHX07064 for ; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 21:53:17 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from respighi.local. (pool-68-160-158-217.bos.east.verizon.net [68.160.158.217]) (authenticated) by hosting.commandprompt.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id h38JT8J16307; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 12:29:08 -0700 Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 15:53:38 -0400 Subject: Re: [Caml-list] single-line comment request Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v543) Cc: Nickolay Semyonov-Kolchin To: caml-list@inria.fr From: Jeff Henrikson In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20030408110617.0389bde8@localhost> Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.543) X-Spam: no; 0.00; henrikson:01 jehenrik:01 caml-list:01 chunks:01 printfs:01 gui:01 char:01 ocaml:01 substituting:98 trivial:01 unix:02 backward:02 interface:03 btw:03 arguments:03 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Though I favor the addition of the single line comments, most of the comments thus far seem to be very subjective. I find the "80+ percent of comments in the existing sources are single line comment" fairly weighty. I also find the following unmentioned idea significant: single line comments save large number of keystrokes when substituting different chunks of code during testing. Also adding printfs. And any comment-compile-uncomment-compile situation. It's a fairly specific task, but also a pronounced difference when it happens. I find a lot of the "no-single-comment" arguments to be sounding remarkably reductionist in the way the "we don't need GUI" arguments that certain die hard UNIX users purvey. The comment character is a user interface for a programming language. Let's make it a nice one. OCaml already breaks backward compatibility often. And for whatever branches of OCaml are out there, any backport would be trivial. BTW, I kind of don't like ##, because it's a shift key. There are no single char symbols left, okay. But that's true for C(++) as well, hence the "//". What's wrong with //? I see that it's an "operator char" in the language definition lexical conventions. I'm not sure if that's a big deal. I'd like "--" also. Same op-ch issue. Jeff Henrikson ------------------- 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