[erlang-questions] Fwd: Function Declaration Syntax

[Richard O'Keefe]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Richard O'Keefe <ok@REDACTED>
> Date: 16 May 2011 5:39:11 PM NZST
> To: Justus <mapandfold@REDACTED>
> Subject: Re: [erlang-questions] Function Declaration Syntax
> 
> 
> On 16/05/2011, at 4:19 PM, Justus wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Richard O'Keefe <ok@REDACTED> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Why not?
>>> That's how you do do it in mathematics when defining a recurrence.
>>> That's how it's done in Haskell.
>>> That's how it's done in SML.
>>> That's how it's done in every functional language I know that _has_
>>> multiple clauses (so, not in Lisp).
>> 
>> That's not good reasoning.
> 
> Sure it is.  It goes like this:
> 
> (A) A certain kind of notation is widespread in a certain area.
> (B) Therefore people should not be surprised to find that notation
>    used in that area.
> 
>> Mathematica (it's as a FP language as Lisp)
>> also lists function names in each parameter pattern, but its semantics
>> is quite different from Erlang:
>> 
>> say[n_] := "n";
>> say[0] := "zero";
> 
> So what?  How does this make repeating the name a bad thing to do.
>> 
>> The reason of the existence of function names here is mainly to help
>> us/ctags, etc not to get lost in code, although Joe said no deep
>> though is involved. That's OK, I like it.
> 
> In fact Joe denied ctags being a reason.  He just followed a tradition.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> Regarding eep-0028, I think putting ";" at the beginning of a line is
>> totally a bad idea, a big error in typesetting.
> 
> It has nothing to do with typesetting.
> If only Dijkstra hadn't died, I could have told him you thought his
> code layout was "totally a bad idea, a big error".
> 
>> There is already a
>> symbol for alignment, "(".
> 
> No, that is NOT a symbol for alignment.
> How can you use "(" for alignment in "if", "case", "try",
> or "receive"?  You can't.  But you *can* use ";".
> 
>> 
>> PS, after learn something about J, one might start to dislike anything
>> that seems to be redundant.
> 
> I learned J many years ago, and very quickly learned to dislike J.
> 
> *Limited* redundancy is necessary for detecting and diagnosing errors.
>