Message-ID: <3D382A69.8070302@csi.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:04:09 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0rc2) Gecko/20020618 Netscape/7.0b1
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: what's wrong with some existing IF languages
References: <Xns924696F5A38E7edmewsicSPAMGUARDcom@199.45.49.11> <iain-137BC7.21103410072002@socrates.zen.co.uk> <nJ1X8.28523$5f3.16894@nwrddc01.gnilink.net> <Xns92479B14FAF54OKB@12.252.202.62> <656X8.29751$5f3.22064@nwrddc01.gnilink.net> <agitkb$qnp@dispatch.concentric.net> <Hy7X8.18$7W6.3@nwrddc02.gnilink.net> <S%7X8.311714$R61.268018@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net> <He9X8.241$7W6.122@nwrddc02.gnilink.net> <eheX8.177$uw.207@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net> <3D2EC4E8.80902@csi.com> <ago3kv$qo9@dispatch.concentric.net> <3d302ede@excalibur.gbmtech.net> <Nf7Y8.350287$R61.330207@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net> <3d317469@excalibur.gbmtech.net> <7LvY8.541163$cQ3.49111@sccrnsc01> <3D330FCF.60006@csi.com> <3d3437cd.20872218@news.tiscali.nl> <3d356991@excalibur.gbmtech.net> <3d36bb67.23942883@news.tiscali.nl> <3d373ef9@excalibur.gbmtech.net> <m3ofd4h7iv.fsf@gauss.totzeit.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-Host: ool-182f30fa.dyn.optonline.net
X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: ool-182f30fa.dyn.optonline.net
X-Trace: excalibur.gbmtech.net 1027090622 ool-182f30fa.dyn.optonline.net (19 Jul 2002 10:57:02 -0400)
Organization: ProNet USA Inc.
Lines: 22
X-Authenticated-User: jnc
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!excalibur.gbmtech.net
Xref: news.duke.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:106388

Chris Kirkwood-Watts wrote:
[...]
>  __ "John Colagioia" <JColagioia@csi.com> _____
> | True; I wonder why the parentheses aren't entirely optional, though,
> | since, almost by definition, there cannot be any ambiguity.
>   Which parens are redundant?

As I understand it, if you know the number of parameters each
function takes, and which names are functions (which I remember at
least a few LISP implementations make you annotate, if not all of
them), then they're all effectively redundant (due to the simplicity
of the prefix notation), except in the case where you return a
function.

It'd be hell to read, though, I'll grant you.

>   For what it's worth, a little macrology will get you infix notation for
>   mathematical expressions in Common Lisp as well as C-style function
>   calling syntax.

Heh.  Ewwwww...

