--- On Wed, 11/12/08, David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You're right. We don't. Not only that. I can't think how aget > instead of [] (and all the similar verbosity, as it were) fits > into "Almost no syntax" and "Core advantage still code-as-data and > syntactic abstraction" of the "Lisp is a good thing" section of the > (current) Clojure rationale.
The "almost no syntax" part is because (aget a 5) introduces no additional syntactical elements, whereas a[5] does. That doesn't mean it's better or worse, it just means there's less syntax. > [...] from my point of view a[5] is less "syntax" than (aget > a 5). I'm not saying my opinion won't change. We're just using different definitions of syntax. The Lispy idea of syntax is that everything looks like same: (fn-or-special-form args). a[5] breaks that regularity, value judgments aside. > There, I've said it. I. D. E.. Without it the whole > thing (Clojure, that is) is in danger of remaining (merely) > academic, joining a long line of other Lisps. Not even > Smalltalk(s), with somewhat "more of a syntax" yet still > close to "code-as-data", could escape this fate. That, IMO, had absolutely nothing to do with IDE support. Smalltalk IDE's of the day blew everything else out of the water (as did many of the Lisp IDEs) and it's only relatively recently that we're seeing similarly-functional non-Lisp/Smalltalk IDEs. > If it's only brevity that you're after then aget > could be abbreviated still, I guess: ag anyone? There's "terse", and there's "concise". I know you're attempting humor, but IMO there's a difference between "association"/"assoc" and "assoc"/"a" in the amount of information being lost in each pair. Nothing stopping anybody from writing "verbose mode" macros. Dave --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
