Moritz (>):
> So Larry and Patrick developed the idea of creating an
> adverb on the test operator instead:
>
> $x == 1e5 :ok('the :ok makes this is a test');
I'm trying to explain to myself why I don't like this idea at all. I'm
only partially successful. Other people seem to have no problem with
it, so I might just be wrong, or part of a very small, ignorable
minority. :) Nevertheless, here is my main kvetch about the new syntax
proposal:
* Adverbs traditionally modify the behaviour of some construct, giving
it additional information or suggesting an alternative algorithm.
Well-known examples are :by on ranges, the adverbs on regexes, or the
:repl option on .pick(). All of these preserve the main objective of
the construct, only modifying it somewhat.
* The proposed :ok syntax changes the semantics of the comparison (or
whatever) from returning a value, to committing test-related actions,
probably resulting in output of some kind. The original comparison is
still syntactically prominent in the statement, but it's the testing
bit, whose syntax is pushed to the irrelevant far right, that does the
heavy lifting.
This can all be summarized in a feeling of mine that the suggested
testing :ok syntax make a travesty of adverbs. For the above reasons,
I don't find it particularly elegant or intuitive. I do think that
it's possible to use adverbs to make a better testing framework, but
IMHO this is not the way.
// Carl
