Syntax & Records (was: Re: COPL, the Tandem, PLITS and JAVA (WAS Re: Eppur si sugat))

[Vlad Dumitrescu]

> Whenever I'm grasped by an urge to mess with something that works
> perfectly well, I go and take a look at the history of Mikael
> Jackson's face.
>
>    http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Jackson.html
>
> and then I tend to wander off and do something else ;-)

Which is a perfectly sensible thing to do [*], but on the other hand if
everyone through the history would only have done the sensible thing, would
we have gotten where we are today? I know, some will say that we might have
been better off without so much science and technology, but that's not
something to discuss here. :-)

What I mean is that if a not trivially dumb question can be asked, I think
it should be asked even if the answer is "no, thanks". For one thing, not
everything one thinks is obvious/clear/simple really is so for everybody;
for another, the question might create "ripples" that might lead to a more
meaningful question to be asked; and finally, nothing is perfect, so there
is always is room for improvement.

Back to the topic, records aren't really "working perfectly well", are they?
They do the job, yes, but not very elegantly.

regards,
Vlad