Why Ruby?

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2010-12-13 12:01, Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> On 12/13/2010 12:23 AM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>> Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>>> D should provide a yield keyword that basically
>>> rewrites the body of the method into the first code.
>>
>> Don't need to change the language for that.
>>
>> =========
>>
>> string yield(string what) {
>> return `if(auto result = dg(`~what~`)) return result;`;
>> }
>>
>> class Foo
>> {
>> uint array[2];
>>
>> int opApply(int delegate(ref uint) dg) {
>> mixin(yield("array[0]"));
>> mixin(yield("array[1]"));
>>
>> return 0;
>> }
>> }
>> =========
>>
>> Compiles and runs as expected, on today's D.
>
> Cool!!
>
> But it's kind of too much what you have to write. I like that you can do
> it without modifying the language, but sometimes it's better to have it
> directly in the language if it's you are going to use it often and it's
> useful. Remembering to put mixin() and enclosing the expression in a
> string is not very nice to the eyes.
>
> I really like string mixins as they are inserted as is into the code, so
> there's no overhead in the call. It would be really cool if you could
> mark a function as being a string mixin, and then to do:
>
> @mixin
> string yield(string what) {
> return `if(auto result = dg(`~what~`)) return result;`;
> }
>
> class Foo
> {
> uint array[2];
>
> int opApply(int delegate(ref uint) dg) {
> yield(array[0]);
> yield(array[1]);
>
> return 0;
> }
> }
>
> So that basically would work like this:
>
> - @mixin tells the compiler it's a string mixin because the function
> returns a string.
> - In the semantic analysis the compiler needs to invoke yield(array[0]).
> It can see that yield is marked as @mixin, so instead of applying
> semantic analysis to array[0] it just converts it back to a string (I
> remember there exists such thing in DMD's source code) and then passes
> it to yield.
>
> No more strings for string mixins! You get nice colors in your editor.
> You get autocomplete in those that support it.
>
> Ideas?

I actually have similar idea that will get rid of the string completely. 
I'll make a separate post about this.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg