Difference between revisions of "Talk:Syntax level"
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Although this point is tangential, and doesn't really affect the problem and solution that Alexander describes, I wonder whether it was such a good idea to make ''note'' a keyword. Few Eiffel keywords are likely to be wanted as identifiers by application developers. The obsolete ''indexing'' keyword, although pointlessly verbose, did have the virtue that no one was likely to want to declare ''indexing'' as an identifier. Not so for ''note''; ten years ago I was working on a system (in Delphi, not Eiffel) where "note" was a central concept. | Although this point is tangential, and doesn't really affect the problem and solution that Alexander describes, I wonder whether it was such a good idea to make ''note'' a keyword. Few Eiffel keywords are likely to be wanted as identifiers by application developers. The obsolete ''indexing'' keyword, although pointlessly verbose, did have the virtue that no one was likely to want to declare ''indexing'' as an identifier. Not so for ''note''; ten years ago I was working on a system (in Delphi, not Eiffel) where "note" was a central concept. | ||
| − | Personally, I think I would have preferred to replace | + | Personally, I think I would have preferred to replace ''indexing'' with some kind of punctuation. C# ''attributes'', which perform a pretty similar role to Eiffel ''notes'', have a syntax that I have always found perfectly legible. Eiffel tends to prefer keywords over punctuation, in order to be as legible as possible for non-geeks; but not completely: for example, in Eiffel we write '':='' rather than ''compute'', ''--'' rather than "rem", and the new object test syntax is about as far from intuitive as anything I've seen in any language. |
The new ''note'' syntax isn't in EiffelStudio 6.1 yet. Is it too late to reconsider? | The new ''note'' syntax isn't in EiffelStudio 6.1 yet. Is it too late to reconsider? | ||
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Latest revision as of 12:43, 13 February 2008
--Peter gummer 13:42, 13 February 2008 (PST) Although this point is tangential, and doesn't really affect the problem and solution that Alexander describes, I wonder whether it was such a good idea to make note a keyword. Few Eiffel keywords are likely to be wanted as identifiers by application developers. The obsolete indexing keyword, although pointlessly verbose, did have the virtue that no one was likely to want to declare indexing as an identifier. Not so for note; ten years ago I was working on a system (in Delphi, not Eiffel) where "note" was a central concept.
Personally, I think I would have preferred to replace indexing with some kind of punctuation. C# attributes, which perform a pretty similar role to Eiffel notes, have a syntax that I have always found perfectly legible. Eiffel tends to prefer keywords over punctuation, in order to be as legible as possible for non-geeks; but not completely: for example, in Eiffel we write := rather than compute, -- rather than "rem", and the new object test syntax is about as far from intuitive as anything I've seen in any language.
The new note syntax isn't in EiffelStudio 6.1 yet. Is it too late to reconsider?
