[erlang-questions] some language changes

[Jason Dusek]

On 6/1/07, Mike McNally <m5@REDACTED> wrote:
> > Stuff that's doable:
> >
> > * destructive updates of local variables (that is, removing the
> > single-assignment property)
>
> AAAAA!!!!!!   Absolutely no.

I agree.

> > * local functions
>
> ??

Functions within functions?

>
> > * ability to use any function as a guard
>
> No.
>
> > * changing of scope rules, including adding "let...in" and "where" constructs
>
> Terrible for maintainability and readbility.
>
> > * a replacement for records

Why not make them into processes with 'accessors', &c. ?

> Fine.
>
> > * indentation-based syntax (no more commas and semicolons and so on)
>
> Horrible beyond description.

Why stick with mandatory (and innumerable) statement terminators?
After coding Ruby for a year, I have to say I *love* just hitting
<enter> at the end of a line.

What about nested namespaces? That I would love to have. Along that
line, how does the idea of 'behaviour inheritance' or rather,
'behaviour composition' sound to the list?

There are a lot of things I really like about Erlang -- especially
matching and the support for distributed programming -- but it would
be real nice to have those namespaces and some form of composition for
'receive' statements.

-- 
_jsn