Nimrod language

[spir]

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:36:17 -0500
bearophile <bearophileHUGS at lycos.com> wrote:

> spir:
> 
> > (Even reproduced "elif"
> 
> Python doesn't have the switch statement, so to write a switch you sometimes use a sequence of if statements, in this case "elif" helps keep the code more tidy:
> 
> x = 3
> if x == 0:
>     pass
> elif x = 1:
>     pass
> else:
>     pass

Sorry, my words were too imprecise; and too strong for such a little issues. I aggre with you, but it's not my point (I wrote "elif" in quote: it's about the term). "elif" is nearly unguessable: should be "elseif" or "elsif" (--> Lua does it right).

> > and kept the stupid ':' of Python ;-).

Sorry again, for "stupid". 

> It comes from usability studies on the ABC language. If you are going to use a Python-like syntax, then removing those ":" is stupid.

IIRC, said usability studies were about indented code structure (as opposed to token-delimited structure). I have never read anything in studies about ':'. This non-token, that does not mean anything, should at best be optional, just like the ';' statement terminator (which is allowed in python, but no one uses it outside multi-statement lines, probably because, precisely, it does not mean anything).
When I used python everyday, I constantly repeted 2 syntax errors:
* forgetting ':' (just like forgetting ';' in D)
* using '=' instead of '==' (obvious reason, same in D)
These are for me 2 grammatical design errors.

> > "Parameters are constant in the procedure body. Their value cannot be changed because this allows the compiler to implement parameter passing in the most efficient way.
> 
> I have missed that part of the docs. What kind of "most efficient way"?

nsure. I guess the author refers to the possibility to pass _any_ non-var parameter by ref under the hood if more efficient, since it won't be changed. (arrays, which have copy semantics in Nimrod , its tuples ~ structs, and object types also are value types apparently)
I plan to do the same for my toy project one day. Pleased to see I'm not the only fool ;-)


Denis
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
vit esse estrany ☣

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