Rant after trying Rust a bit

[Timon Gehr via Digitalmars-d]

On 07/25/2015 02:19 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/23/15 5:26 PM, Ziad Hatahet via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Adam D. Ruppe via Digitalmars-d
>> <digitalmars-d at puremagic.com <mailto:digitalmars-d at puremagic.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     I think it is actually kinda pretty:
>>
>>
>> What about:
>>
>> int median(int a, int b, int c) {
>>      return (a<b) ? (b<c) ? b : (a<c) ? c : a : (a<c) ? a : (b<c) ? c
>> : b;
>> }
>>
>> vs.
>>
>> def median(a: Int, b: Int, c: Int) =
>>    if (a < b) {
>>      if (b < c) b
>>      else if (a < c) c
>>      else a
>>    }
>>    else if (a < c) a
>>    else if (b < c) c
>>    else b
>
> This is a wash. If we want to discuss good things in Rust

(The quoted bit is Scala code.)

> we could get inspiration from, we need relevant examples. -- Andrei
>

What do you mean?

I think it is pretty obvious that 'if'/'else' is "better" syntax than 
'?:'. It e.g. does not leave the separation of context and condition up 
to operator precedence rules and is hence easier to parse by a human. 
Not that I'd care much, but it is inconvenient to be asked not to use 
the ternary operator in team projects just because it has a badly 
engineered syntax.

Also, we have (int x){ return r; }, auto foo(int x){ return r; }, (int 
x)=>r, but not auto foo(int x)=>r. It's an arbitrary restriction.


(BTW: To all the people who like to put the ternary operator condition 
into parens in order to imitate if: A convention that makes more sense 
here is to put the entire (chained) ternary expression in parentheses.)