Re: Hacking the parser - function argument parentheses

[Mark Hamburg <mark@...>]

On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:22 AM, spir ☣ wrote:

> I'm presently thinking at something maybe a bit similar (not for a Lua variant, rather a custom language). It has 2 aspects:
> * Extend Lua-like "funcname {...}" & "funcname '...'" to any argument, and make it standard (and only) func call syntax.
> * Identifiers can be made of any non-reserved chars.
> 
> It appears to be a bit problematic because of possible ambiguity; especially the case of no arg at all is annoying. So, I ended up using '!' meaning request for execution, eg:
>    obj.doSomething arg!
>    obj.doSomething!
>    x : obj.makeSomething arg!
>    x : obj.makeSomething!
> (This also gives for free a distinction between denotation of the method itself & execution:
>    x : obj.makeSomething	<-- 'x' is bound to the method
> )

I get tempted by these sort of things on occasion, but the I realize that ! is only one fewer characters than (). The downside to () is that I actually tend to put spaces inside, so that's two more characters and they have to be balanced properly. On the other hand, I don't even want to think about balancing !s.

Mark