[erlang-questions] case expression scope

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 4/03/2014, at 8:07 AM, Daniel Goertzen wrote:

> Hmm, fun wrapping could be the basis of hygienic-case parse transform.  I'll have to see what the performance overhead of a fun wrap is like.
> 
> The example I gave is contrived and a bit weak I guess.  In my most recent run-in with this issue there were a lot of bindings from the enclosing scope that were used, so breaking things out to top level functions would not always be a good option.

I see a non-sequitur there.

Simplified examples are great for revealing bugs.

For illuminating style concerns, NOTHING beats REAL code.

"There were a lot of bindings from the enclosing scope"
is already a warning sign that the code should be restructured.

>  Funs would be better, but add clutter and maybe runtime overhead.

There is currently some run-time overhead.
In R16B03-1, the compiler still does not optimise

(fun (...) -> ... ... end)(...)

by turning it into the equivalent of an SML let ... in ... end
form, but there is no particular reason why it couldn't.

Whether you can _measure_ the overhead in a real application
is another matter entirely.

Splitting out little functions and then telling the compiler
to inline them might well have the least overhead of all.