Erlang is getting too big

Bengt Kleberg Bengt.Kleberg@REDACTED
Tue Oct 14 10:07:19 CEST 2003


Thomas Lindgren wrote:
...deleted
> Here's another part that could stand cleaning up:
> 
> - guard syntax 1: "," and ";"
> - guard syntax 2: "and", "or" 
>   (are they there anymore?)
> - expression syntax 1: "and", "or"
> - expression syntax 2: "andalso", "orelse"
> 
> All of them working somewhat differently.
> 

oops. what is the difference between ',' and 'and'? and ';' and 'or'? i 
have been using them to mean the same thing.

eiffel has 'andalso' and 'orelse'. the only :-) people that finds 'and' 
and 'or' strange are the ones that has a c background.


> My modest proposal:
> 
> - drop is_* guards (unless there is a pressing reason
> to keep them?)
> 

there is no static typing. therefore it helps (me) to be able to 
recognise the return value of a function from its name. one way of doing 
this is to teach users (by using the concept in guards) to call 
functions that return booleans is_*.

moreover, there is a guard float() and a bif float(). the bif returns a 
float, not a boolean.
this (imho) is confusing


bengt.




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