Re: first class ':'

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:00 AM, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> But I like the things that are just syntactic sugar in Lua: it means
> that you can exhaustively explain them in more basic terms in one
> sentence.

OK, this is sugar we know so well:
   - obj:method() becomes obj.method(obj)

But in the case of a obj:method _without_ parentheses, then there is a
somewhat more elaborate expansion as a closure.

That feels manageable.

First-class ':' has some cute advantages, it is an operator and
presumably has a metamethod, so that we can finally distinguish
between method and table lookup, _if needed_.

But I worry about the complexity of the change, possible performance
implications, and more semantics that, yes, have to be explained ...

steve d.