2009-12-19

metalang (language for defining language)

8.21: adda/syntax kept simple:
. make it easy to define control structures
for letting users decide what a good language is .
12.19:
. this could make life more complicated for {maintainers, readers}
as each subprogram may potentially involve
having to learn yet another a new sublang';
but, this could also be fixed by other tools:
smart search&replace, and macro expansion,
which would translate all the source's user-defined language
into the std lang' .

comments via label
8.27: adda/syntax/simplified conditional:
. while it simplifies the lang to have only one way to do a conditional,
some find it a distraction not to have (if ) at the front;
since a conditional is a big deal
and is easily overlooked with the ?-operator being at the end of a line .
. for those who like (if),
they can make it part of a label,
which is one way to have a comment come before a stmt:
eg,
[if my condition]: b ? s; no? s2 .

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