proposed syntax change

[Michiel Helvensteijn]

Paul D. Anderson wrote:

> I was browsing the Python spec yesterday and came across this interesting
> and useful syntax:
> 
> "/" (one slash) means floating point division, e.g. 5/2 = 2.5 even though
> 5 and 2 are integers
> 
> "//" (two slashes) means integer (floor) division, e.g. 5.0//2.0 = 2.0
> even though 5.0 and 2.0 are floats.

Yeah, I love that distinction. As a matter of fact, I've added it to my own
language. Same syntax, too, though there was some thought about using
the "div" keyword instead.

> I've always been a little troubled by the standard division operator being
> dependent on the types of the operands. (I understand the need for it, I
> just didn't like it much.) Now here is an elegant (IMHO) solution.

I agree. It's one of those C idiosyncrasies the world could do without.

> It seems to me that this could be added to D with very little effort and
> would add a feature to the language.

Seems like trouble to me. If we ignore for the moment the fact that "//" is
used for line comments (D could use "div", for example), changing the
meaning of "/" for integer operands would probably break many programs.

> Oh wait...I think "//" is used elsewhere. Well, we could still use it but
> mark it as a breaking change. Then users could simply remove all previous
> uses of "//" from their code. If they REALLY need to retain the old "//"
> functionality we could replace it with a new symbol. How about "--", like
> Ada? Oh wait...

Line-comments are very useful. My language uses "|".

-- 
Michiel Helvensteijn