chat/argument about PL syntax

user

May 15, 2021 22:53

CMQ: In curly brace languages, should braces be on the same line or the line below (or on the same line sometimes and on a separate line at other times)?

lyxal

Same line

Redwolf Programs

Same line

lyxal

I used to be of the line below way of thinking but I've now learned better.

user

Why? (I agree, just asking for reasons)

lyxal

It looks much neater

And code folding looks better too

Wzl

May 15, 2021 22:54

@user depends :)

Redwolf Programs

CMQ: Curly braces, significant whitespace, or something else?

user

Huh, I actually find the C# way with new lines for braces nicer

Wzl

@RedwolfPrograms something else

user

@RedwolfPrograms Booth

lyxal

@RedwolfPrograms bold of you to assume I have more than one line of code :p

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 22:55

@user go away :p

A username

@user Sam line

Wzl

@user like this:

user

@Wzl What would you suggest (same line for control flow, separate ine for functions)?

@RedwolfPrograms I'm dead serious

@Ausername May I ask why?

A username

separat eline

lyxal

@user you're not dead serious, you're user.

A username

May 15, 2021 22:56

@user Idk, I think it looks better.

Wzl

if (condition)
{ const smt = a;
  const smtelse = b;
  return expr }

user

@Ausername I'm having trouble with this keyboard, okay?

lyxal

@user because the line is owned by sam

user

@Wzl Oh god

A username

Besides, different line just takes up extra space

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 22:56

Jo King is lucky, they're the only one resistant to "You're not joking, you're ..." comments

lyxal

@Ausername you're lucky that Sam manages your lines

Wzl

@user or:

user

@Ausername Makes sense

A username

@lyxal Typo

user

@Wzl Please don't let loose any more of that formatting here

A username

May 15, 2021 22:57

@user You're not having trouble with this keyboard, okay?, you're user.

Wzl

if (condition)
{ const ...
; const ...
; return expr
}

Redwolf Programs

Oh no

That's awful

user

@Ausername Actually, that's my real name (I was named "Original Original Original VI" when I was born, but I changed my name yesterday)

lyxal

@Ausername that's the joke :p

user

@Wzl I saw you do your SML that way, and man is that ugly

It's slightly more understandable with commas, but still

Wzl

May 15, 2021 22:58

grins

user

But actually, if people had started out doing it your way, I would've found the way I do it now repulsive

A username

if(condi
tio
n){cons
t ..
.; c
onst .
..; ret
urn
e
x
p
r
}

Wzl

it's my protest against languages other than scheme/lisp

user

I hate how subjective humans are

@Wzl (Sorry, (I (couldn't (hear (you (through (the (parentheses))))))))

@Ausername I've changed my mind, Wzl's method is beautiful compared to this

lyxal

if (condition){stuff; moreStuff; joeMama; return 69;}

That is the superior way

No newlines

Just one line

A username

May 15, 2021 23:01

Not JoeMama, a rickroll link.

@user I know, right!

Wzl

but in all seriousness, I hate curly braces and indentation because I hate statements. The only time you need (;) or (,) is statements and tuples/lists in SML

Redwolf Programs

What's the alternative to statements?

A username

Expressions

Wzl

expressions, recursion, and parameter passing

A username

Ninja'd

1/3

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 23:02

I like how Rust does it

Wzl

the implicit return?

Redwolf Programs

You can write code as if things are statements, but things like if/else are actually expressions

Implicit return is gross, not that part

user

Wow, Java lets you embed Rickroll links in code /s

Wzl

yeah ruby did a surprisingly large amount right, minus newlines and keywords

user

@RedwolfPrograms Why is it gross?

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 23:04

What is this, TI-BASIC? Should I use the Ans variable to get the result? :p

A username

@user How is that not one of Java's many SyntaxErrors

user

@RedwolfPrograms To me, val foo = if (something) { return x } else { return y } just looks awkward

@Ausername It's a label

Try it in JS and C too

Redwolf Programs

@user What on earth is that

Wzl

having return at all is gross. I disagree with trailing semicolons meaning anything though

Redwolf Programs

Why is there both return and val foo =

Is this a function or not

user

May 15, 2021 23:05

@Ausername The stuff after // is a comment, that's ignored. The statement System.out.println is considered has the label https

@RedwolfPrograms That's what I was saying, it looks gross

A username

@user Oh.

user

@RedwolfPrograms val foo = if (something) x else y makes much more sense

Redwolf Programs

But...yeah. I agree with that.

user

"Implicit return" or whatever it's called makes sense

Redwolf Programs

You shouldn't need to return from an if/else statement

A username

May 15, 2021 23:06

val foo = something ? x : y

user

What were you talking about, then?

Redwolf Programs

Functions

user

def foo(bar: Int) = {
  //some computations
  baz(bar, food)
}
What about that is gross?

Wzl

@user line comments are gross :)

Redwolf Programs

Idk, maybe just lots of time using JS _/(.-.)\_

user

May 15, 2021 23:08

What is that emoticon?

Redwolf Programs

Upside down shrugging

user

lol

Wzl

@user ~~I see you used my indent style~~ :(

user

@Wzl Lisp has line comments

Wzl

so I'm fixing that

lisp made other mistakes like string escapes too

user

May 15, 2021 23:09

@Wzl I think I need therapy now

@Wzl What's wrong with escapes? They're very useful. Allowiong raw literals in addition to that is important, though

Redwolf Programs

String escapes are bad now?!

Wzl

(actually I'm considering abandoning all string literals because they cause problems)

@RedwolfPrograms YES

user

How???

@Wzl "Actually, I'm considering abandoning all food because it causes problems" :P

Redwolf Programs

"Allowing my interpreter to run arbitrary code is causing issues"

Wzl

@user say you make a new regex flavor that supports one extra character class like \w, now you have to use double backslashes or, slightly better, use a different escape character too, which you now have to double to include verbatim

user

May 15, 2021 23:12

@Wzl This is why you also allow raw string literals

Wzl

whereas with APL/smalltalk/SQL literals you can just have a function that does escaping

user

So "foo\"\nbar" for normal stuff, and raw"foo\w\n" for regex and stuff

Redwolf Programs

What if you want the string "'

user

@Wzl I find that extremely annoying

Redwolf Programs

^

Wzl

May 15, 2021 23:13

@user yes, except for

Redwolf Programs

Why

Wzl

@user and I find backslashes annoying

user

How do those cause problems?

@Wzl Use another character, then

Wzl

@RedwolfPrograms they remove greppability and the ability to parse (easily) with regex

user

~~I find people annoying. That doesn't mean I'm going to eliminate them all~~

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 23:14

@Wzl So you're moving the burden onto the user instead of the interpreter

user

@Wzl Parsing with regex isn't an important thing

Redwolf Programs

That's not good design

Wzl

@RedwolfPrograms that's why I'm still thinking about it.

user

Any moderately complex language probably can't be parsed with regex, that's not what it was made for

Redwolf Programs

It was designed explicitly for HTML

Wzl

May 15, 2021 23:15

but with raw literals and a regex function, it's moveing the burden to the standard library, not the user

user

If you really want to make parsing easier, make regex better. Maybe mix it with BNF

Wzl

@user I hate moderately complex languages btw

user

@RedwolfPrograms I can't tell if ~~you're joking~~ you were making a joke

@Wzl I can't tell if you were making a joke either

Wzl

@user regexes are already not regular expressions anymore, but i do think grammars are important, in a library

user

@Wzl The user still has to deal with annoying stdlib functions instead of having native support

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 23:17

I like my regexp like thing where you could use (name:abc.+) to define things for recursion

Wzl

@user I'm laughing at myself, but I'm not joking

Redwolf Programs

^^^

user

A language's syntax should be designed to be easy to use and understand. That does mean it should be simple, but not that you can validate/match it with a regex flavor

Redwolf Programs

And there's a balance between simple to interpret and simple to write

Wzl

@user you have to use functions to use regex anyway (outside of perl). So replace and match automatically convert to regex. simple.

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 23:19

Brainfuck is pretty simple, but not to use

Wzl

@user debatable :P

user

Even if you have a grammar that regex could be used on, why use it when you could parse it properly? (maybe tokenize it first)

@Wzl Simple for the implementor (hau two spel?), not the user

@Wzl Everything's debatable if you're brave enough

Redwolf Programs

JS has regexp literals, maybe we should all just write languages with those :p

Wzl

@user '.*' match is not any harder than .match(/.*/)

user

CMP: Who thinks all syntaxes (syntices??) should be made as complex as possible so that Wzl gets annoyed? :P

3

@Wzl Okay?

It looks simpler, but I don't see how that helps your point

Wzl

May 15, 2021 23:21

that's the syntax I'm proposing

user

Oh ok

Redwolf Programs

What about regexes with \b and friends?

user

Still don't see how this is easier for people, though

^^

Redwolf Programs

Or with ' in them?

user

You're always going to have to use some form of escape characters, unless you decide to do 'foo' + chr(32) + 'bar' to represent the string foo'bar (no idea what the ASCII actually is :) )

Wzl

May 15, 2021 23:24

@RedwolfPrograms '/\b''' match versus .match(/\/\b'/)

Redwolf Programs

So '' for a '? That's still escaping.

user

^

Wzl

yes, but without taking any more characters, or hardcoding any shortcuts

Redwolf Programs

Plus I'd argue \' is more readable

user

It's just a very limited, very annoying form of escaping

Redwolf Programs

May 15, 2021 23:25

And using \ makes adding things like \n convenient

user

I'm getting too involved in this debate, so I'm going to leave now. o/

Redwolf Programs

o\/

4

Wzl

@RedwolfPrograms newline is more readable :)

The Nineteenth Byte

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