Re: else if not (Re: wishlist)

Re: else if not (Re: wishlist)

[Paul Haahr]

> The if/else `problem' has always struck me as really stupid.

the only if/else problem in rc is that it's not compatible with td's rc.
the reason is that if not semantics are awful, as is acknowledged in the
rc paper.  Byron introduced this one change because he thought it was an
improvement worth being incompatible with the plan 9 version.  i agree
with him; the last time we hashed this out on the list it seemed that
was the consensus.

> BCPL and
> LISP get it right.

that's a matter of opinion.  Byron and i picked scheme's cond semantics
for es, because we thought that was right.

paul

Re: else if not (Re: wishlist)

[Chris Siebenmann]

 I believe Tom Duff has said in the past that 'if not' was a gory
hack that he was trying hard to get rid of. I consider this a good
reason not to introduce it back into Byron's rc.

	- cks

else if not (Re: wishlist)

[Richard Brooksby]

bk@analytikerna.se (Bengt KLEBERG) wrote:

> I also think 'if not' was cute and would happily fix the (very) few
> 'else' that I have if I got it back.

The if/else `problem' has always struck me as really stupid.  BCPL and
LISP get it right.  Just do this:

  if(<condition>) {<true clause>} else {<false clause>}

  when(<condition>) {<true clause>}

Ho hum.
---
Richard Brooksby <richard@harlequin.co.uk>
ML Project / Symbolic Processing Division / Harlequin
+44 223 872522