[m-dev.] Ordered conjunction

[Fergus Henderson]

On 26-Aug-2000, Ralph Becket <rbeck at microsoft.com> wrote:
> > From: David Overton [mailto:dmo at cs.mu.OZ.AU]
> > 
> > IMHO, the syntax chosen for the operator should be more suggestive
> > that this is an ordered conjunction.  How about `&>'?  (IIRC this is
> > syntax Zoltan used for ordered conjunction in Ptah).
> 
> Ugh (sorry, Zoltan.)  It occurrs to me that just `&' would do, as it
> appears to be unused right now.

No, "&" is used for parallel conjunction.
(This is not yet documented in the language reference manual.)

> But anything we pick is going to be
> sufficiently distinct from `,' that it'll be obvious that something
> special is going on.  The reason I suggested `&&' was that in C etc.
> it implements short-circuit left-to-right conjunction, which is what
> we want.

Yes, I too much prefer `&&' to `&>'.  `&&' is used in C, C++, C#,
Java, sh, csh, awk, Perl, and many other languages as a short-circuit
left-to-right logical "and" operator, and so to people familiar with
any of those languages I think it should suggest sequential evaluation.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh at 128.250.37.3        |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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