Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!saturn!xanthian
From: xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM (Metafont Consultant Account)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Anyone want to design a language?
Message-ID: <10979@saturn.ADS.COM>
Date: 21 Feb 90 07:45:07 GMT
References: <22569:05:10:24@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> <8475@wpi.wpi.edu> <111355@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> <447@fwi.uva.nl>
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 960-7300
Lines: 20


Better, make the language strictly postfix, give it exactly one
grouping operator, parentheses will do, and you get a regular syntax
and lots of help for the compiler.  See the on going discussion in
comp.lang.forth.  For operators where it makes sense, have a default
number of arguments, and also an optional compilation (overloading) to
handle the variable length list of arguments case.  This completely
eliminates questions of precedence, etc.

For example:

	a b +           is an expression for the sum of a and b.
	(a b c d) +     is an expression for the sum of a, b, c, and d.
and
        a b c Func1     is a fixed number of arguments function call
        (a b c d) Func2 is a variable number of arguments function call

--
xanthian@ads.com xanthian@well.sf.ca.us (Kent Paul Dolan)
Again, my opinions, not the account furnishers'.