[erlang-patches] Scan "=<<" as something useful

[Rich Neswold]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 9:50 AM, Raimo Niskanen <
raimo+erlang-patches@REDACTED> wrote:

> But I still think that forever forcing Erlang to need an infinite look ahead
> custom syntax aware scanner still is a strong argument against the suggested
> improvement.
>

The language designers used certain symbols multiple times in the grammar
which could create ambiguous scanning results. The compiler needs to
properly handle them, even if it means sacrificing the scanner's simplicity.

The C++ camp recently fixed a similar wart with nested templates. You used
to place a whitespace between the closing '>'s so the compiler didn't
confuse the closing of both template specifications with a shift operator
(>>). It now Does The Right Thing even though it was a special case.

-- 
Rich
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