[mercury-users] Records

[Ralph Becket]

While we're all voting, `^' seems the best choice I've seen so far.
@ Is too `dark' a character.  E.g.

	X = Y at field1@field2 at field3	% V. cluttered & looks like Perl
(spit)
vs
	X = Y^field1^field2^field3	% Much easier on the eye.

Even spacing out the @s looks clumsy:

	X = Y @ field1 @ field2 @ field3

Ralph

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Schachte [mailto:schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU]
> Sent: 03 November 1999 22:30
> To: mercury-users at cs.mu.OZ.AU
> Subject: Re: [mercury-users] Records
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 03, 1999 at 12:25:26PM +0100, Juergen Stuber wrote:
> > Robert Ernst Johann JESCHOFNIK <rejj at cat.cs.mu.OZ.AU> writes:
> > > 	Field1 = X ^ field1,
> > > 
> > > doesn't look all that nice, and doesn't look like 
> `field1' is a member of
> > > `X', 
> > 
> > I second that.  How about @?
> > 
> >     X @ field1
> > 
> > "X at field one" sounds nice and intuitive
> > (ok, maybe the order isn't right).
> 
> Agreed, this is better than `^'.
> 
> > Even better would be a dot.  I know that it is planned to make
> > `.' the module qualifier eventually, but I think it would be
> > a better idea to junk that proposal, keep `:' as a module qualifier,
> > use `::' for types, modes etc. and depreciate `__':
> 
> Don't forget that infix dot has the problem that you *mustn't* put
> whitespace between the dot and whatever comes next, or it'll be
> tokenized as the end of the clause.  This could be very surprising to
> those used to putting whitespace around their dots.
> 
> Of course, the same is true of dot as a module separator.
> 
> Aside from that, I agree, dot would make a better field separator than
> module separator.  But `@' isn't too bad.
> 
> -- 
> Peter Schachte                     Remember, "Euphemisms are for the
> mailto:schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        differently brained."
> http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/  -- jamie at cdevil.unx.sas.com (James
> PGP: finger schachte at 128.250.37.3  Cooper) 
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