[erlang-questions] Erlang Syntax - again

[Kevin Scaldeferri]

On Mar 10, 2008, at 3:26 PM, Robert Virding wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I have read Damien's post and Yariv's reply. My question is: they  
> say what they don't want, but what do they actually want? I mean  
> this question seriously. Perhaps someone who is new to the language  
> could answer and tell what they found most difficult when learning  
> the syntax. I have spoken Erlang so long that I see it as natural,  
> warts and all.

"if" is very unintuitive.  As best as I can remember, everything else  
was a minor annoyance at worst.  I certainly wouldn't complain if  
lambda functions and records were less verbose, but they weren't  
_difficult_ to learn the syntax.

>
> Even records look like they do for a specific reason and it is  
> harder than you would think to change them. Other Erlang features  
> force issues.
>
> Getting back. What do people want? Do they want something that looks  
> like Java, or C++, or Python, or Perl, or ... ? This is actually  
> possible to do, BUT (there is always a but) you would not have the  
> Java or C++ or Python or ... semantics, you would still have Erlang  
> semantics. Would we then get complaints that while it looks like  
> Java it doesn't behave like Java, and why not?

Personally, I would like it if functional programming were better  
supported and less verbose.  (i.e., function composition, lambda  
functions, currying and partial application, etc).  user-defined infix  
operators might also be nice.


-kevin