Declaration syntax

[H. S. Teoh]

On Wed, Jan 08, 2014 at 08:47:21AM +0000, Boyd wrote:
[...]
> I've been experimenting with language design a bit and I found that
> a much bigger issue with coding, is that we still use files and
> plain text. An IDE where code is represented in a simple tree and
> saved in a database, for example, would improve things dramatically,
> and no language changes would be necessary.

I disagree with that direction. The advantage of a text format is that
it can represent *anything* (suitably serialized, of course), and that
when things go wrong with your tools (IDE corrupts the file, or doesn't
support certain operations, or, for that matter, you're working in an
environment where no IDE is available and all you have is a bare-bones
text editor), you have a way of reaching into the data and fixing it
yourself. Having a custom binary representation of the code makes it
impossible to manipulate outside of the IDE, which makes data recovery
very time-consuming or impossible.

That's not to say that plain text is the best representation for code,
of course. But I have yet to find an alternative that doesn't suck, and
that offers advantages that plain text can't offer. This isn't the first
time this idea came up. I've heard of many attempts to replace text
representation for code, and all of them sucked. If you think you have a
superior representation, please convince me otherwise.


T

-- 
Elegant or ugly code as well as fine or rude sentences have something in common: they don't depend on the language. -- Luca De Vitis