[Erlang Forums] [Erlang/OTP Proposals/Proposals: RFC] Re-visiting EEP-0055

Austin Ziegler halostatue@REDACTED
Mon Apr 25 19:26:05 CEST 2022


On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 1:12 PM Eric Pailleau <eric.pailleau@REDACTED>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Sorry but the only common point between Erlang and Elixir should be BEAM.
>
> That's all.
>
> Following you point of view, we could write an EEP at Elixir to ask
> variables must be bound only once, like Erlang, because... (feel blanks).
>

Except that the EEP was *not* created by an Elixir developer, but an Erlang
developer who found the concept useful. If I really felt that it would
improve Elixir to have a "bind once only" rule change, I would absolutely
suggest it with hopefully as much detail as was in this EEP that people
have rejected for purely emotional reasons.

There *are* fairly frequent discussions on elixir-core about what would be
good additions for Elixir. Sometimes they are accepted. Sometimes not.
Sometimes the ideas are good, but felt not to be in the spirit of Elixir (a
frequent request years ago would be auto-destructuring of maps; it has been
rejected firmly, and there are rarely-used modules that can offer
*similar* capabilities
through Elixir’s macro capabilities). Sometimes the ideas are good, but
considered to be better fits to propose to Erlang itself so that Elixir can
build atop a stronger foundation.

What I haven’t seen in elixir-core is the emotional overreaction to an
idea. It’s probably because elixir-core is small enough that the core
developers and the language’s creator are still quite active in most
discussions, which is not really true of the Erlang development core
(especially since the move to the forum). Let me be clear, I’m not saying
it’s because I think the Elixir community is better. I am impressed
(mostly) with the Erlang community’s cohesiveness and ability to work
together. I am disappointed that a good, well-written EEP is being
dismissed for reasons that are more emotional than considered, and that
there’s unnecessary sideswipes against other languages in the process.

I ultimately don’t care whether the EEP is adopted or not. If adopted as
is, it offers some optimizations that may be usable by the compiler. If
adopted with changes along Loïc’s suggestions, it offers room for future
optimizations and extensibility without the use of further sigils. If
adopted as the *inverse* meaning (as someone suggested, such that the pin
marks a *mutable* instead of matching variable) the change will be more
disruptive, but also equally good. If not adopted, Erlang will survive. But
the discussion should be on the merits, not on comparisons.

-a

-a
-- 
Austin Ziegler • halostatue@REDACTEDaustin@REDACTED
http://www.halostatue.ca/http://twitter.com/halostatue
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