[erlang-questions] A modest proposal to eliminate tuples

[Tristan Sloughter]

This is definitely a troll.


On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Anthony Ramine <n.oxyde@REDACTED> wrote:

> Are we 1st April already? I didn’t implement yet my patch to make tuples
> 0-indexed. :(
>
> But well, that is overseded by your proposal.
>
> --
> Anthony Ramine
>
> Le 27 août 2014 à 20:21, Chris Pacejo <colanderman@REDACTED> a écrit :
>
> > Tuples are clearly unnecessary and a wart in Erlang's design.
> > Consider all the operations tuples provide:
> >
> > Construction: X = {A,B,C}
> > Destruction: {A,B,C} = X
> > Pattern matching: case X of {foo,B,C} -> ... end
> >
> > Note now that these operations are provided equally by lists:
> >
> > Construction: X = [A,B,C]
> > Destruction: [A,B,C] = X
> > Pattern matching: case X of [foo,B,C] -> ... end
> >
> > And note that lists provide the additional functionality of indexing
> > and consing, which tuples do not provide.
> >
> > Clearly, using tuples instead of lists provides no benefit, and to
> > simplify the language they should be deprecated in OTP 18, and removed
> > by OTP 19.  To support this transition, a compiler option can be
> > provided to maintain the ill-conceived tuple notation for legacy code;
> > may I suggest +distinguish_homogenous_and_heterogenous_collections.
> >
> > Now, surely detractors will claim that the distinction between tuples
> > and lists signals programmer intent, permits bytecode optimization,
> > and enables rich typechecking in Dialyzer.  I claim these purported
> > benefits are bollocks.  I, and no doubt others, routinely find the
> > need to iterate over tuple elements, and to store unrelated data
> > together in a single list.  Anyone who claims that such things are not
> > necessary clearly has not ever written a complex program.  (I suspect
> > anyone who thinks structurally-typed records and key-value maps serve
> > different purposes falls into this group.)
> >
> > I hope you all agree, and that we can look forward to a future Erlang
> > supporting lists and maps as its sole data constructors.
> >
> > - Chris P
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