[erlang-questions] [proposal] Declarative syntax for metadata (long!)

[Dominic Williams]

Hi,

Le 19 mars 2010 à 15:02, Vlad Dumitrescu a écrit :

>> But for everyday programming, I'm afraid introducing reification would actually make Erlang less simple, less easy to reason about, less reliable... and these properties of Erlang are more important to me, given that I want to ship working software quickly, than being able to do cool things with reification.
> 
> Well, for the first thing, this kind of functionality shouldn't affect
> anything else unless it is used, just as little as I would not be
> affected at all if asn1 or megaco would be the buggiest applications
> on the planet.

But asn1 and megaco are just erlang applications and modules. Using them or not does not affect the appearance and understandability of one's code. What you are suggesting is a change in the language. People will use it, so the possible disadvantages have to weighed against the possible benefits.

>> I can see one area which would become much easier to work on: development tools.
> 
> Yes, that is one. And my (partial) opinion is that they are quite
> important. Good tool support is essential and tool developers deserve
> help too :) The same kind of reification/introspection exists and in
> some places could be improved even at system level (to help manage
> installed applications, for example) and in the runtime (process
> management).

Agreed, tool support is important. But if it's the only area that needs reification?

>> I've always been a fan of Joe's principle that for every thing one adds to Erlang, one should remove something else - so since Joe is supporting adding introspection, I'm interested to hear what he would be prepared to remove in exchange?
> 
> I'm not Joe, but in my previous message to the list I mentioned
> something that could be removed :)

Sorry, I've read your previous message 3 times but cannot see it.

Cheers,

Dominic