Erlang is getting too big

[Thomas Lindgren]

--- Kostis Sagonas <kostis@REDACTED> wrote:

>    1. "Duplicate guards": There is absolutely no
> need to teach the old
> 	guards.  Simply introduce the new is_* ones!

Why introduce the is_* guards in the first place? I
don't see the point.

Here's another part that could stand cleaning up:

- guard syntax 1: "," and ";"
- guard syntax 2: "and", "or" 
  (are they there anymore?)
- expression syntax 1: "and", "or"
- expression syntax 2: "andalso", "orelse"

All of them working somewhat differently.

My modest proposal:

- drop is_* guards (unless there is a pressing reason
to keep them?)

- get rid of strict and/or in expressions and move
andalso/orelse to "and"/"or". This just seems to be a
bug cast in stone.

- write guards as arbitrarily nested (G1,G2) and
(G1;G2) and drop the and/or-syntax in guards.

All of these get rid of unnecessary complexity of
Erlang.

>    2. "Java style module naming"
> 	Is this so difficult a concept to grasp? 

Given the semantic problems of Erlang packages, I'm
afraid it is :-)

Best,
Thomas


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