random thoughts on language design etc.

[James Hague]

>I think it would be great to loosen the
>restrictions a bit and be able to
>use arbitrary boolean functions in guards.

I think this changes the language in such a dramatic way that there's not
much point in discussing it :)

My feeling is that all other Erlang changes should be put on hold until
something is done to improve records.  Wow, is it ugly to have use -include
directives, especially without any guarantees that different modules are
compiled with the same record definitions.  It's like C externs all over
again.  I know abstract syntax patterns didn't work out, but surely there's
_something_ that would make a good alternative?  I remember seeing mention
of a simple, dynamic record system for Erlang somewhere, but I haven't been
able to locate it.