[m-dev.] EDCGs and Higher Order Programming

[David Glen JEFFERY]

On 28-Jan-2000, Tyson Dowd <trd at cs.mu.OZ.AU> wrote:
> I think this is the key point.  EDCGs are low on syntax, and so hide a
> lot of stuff from you -- hopefully it is being hidden because it is just
> clutter.  However, that information is still all available,
> and a sufficiently advanced editing environment would be able
> automatically show you the hidden information (something like the
> annotations you have above). 

This would be to be an *extremely* advanced editing environment. We are not
talking about a simple syntactic transformation as we are with DCGs; the EDCG
transformation requires resolving overloading for one thing.

> I think there is a danger that people could create a 
> difficult to read coding style by over-using EDCGs.  But I'm guessing
> it would probably be no more difficult to read than the expanded out version.
> 
> Using records and DCGs to tackle the clutter of multiple state arguments
> is a nice little hack, but it mixes two sorts of concepts.

So invent a new concept?

> I think we need to see how EDCGs pan out.  Many of the coding style
> concerns people have may turn out to be simply pathological cases that
> sane people wouldn't write.  

Indeed. We probably won't know until we try EDCGs out for a while.


dgj
-- 
David Jeffery (dgj at cs.mu.oz.au) | If your thesis is utterly vacuous
PhD student,                    | Use first-order predicate calculus.
Dept. of Comp. Sci. & Soft. Eng.|     With sufficient formality
The University of Melbourne     |     The sheerist banality
Australia                       | Will be hailed by the critics: "Miraculous!"
                                |     -- Anon.
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