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0 pointstmtvl2mo ago0 comments

Leaving aside the fact that you have at least 4 (EDIT: 5) mistakes in that code, I find it less readable than the Lisp equivalent. The brackets reinforce the structure imposed by the indentation and help me keep track of order of execution. But that's how my brain works and that's why syntax is subjective.

0 comments

Joker_vD2mo ago

My apologies, it should've been (if you insist on indentation)

        let a, b, c = 0, 1, 0
    fb_start:
        writen(a)
        b +:= a
        a :=
          b - a
        c +:= 1
        if c < 100 do
          goto fb-start

Would you care to elaborate about brackets helping with tracking the order of execution? I'm really curious about that part.

kazinator2mo ago

TXR Lisp, with infix via ifx macro:

  (ifx
    (let ((a 0) (b 1) (c 0))
      (tagbody
       fb-start
        (prinl a)
        (b += a)
        (a := b - a)
        (c += 1)
        (if (c < 100)
          (go fb-start)))))

tmtvlOP2mo ago

Well, the P in PEMDAS stands for 'brackets'. The clearest example, even though it's rather uncommon:

  a := x ** y ** z

(and that's hoping the language does the OOE for exponentiation arithmetically correctly) versus

  (setf a (expt x (expt y z)))

It's a bit like how Reverse Polish Notation is superior to the infix notation we torture ourselves with (x + y * z or (x + y) * z versus x y z * + or x y + z *).

Joker_vD2mo ago

But that's just associativity, not the order of evaluation? E.g. in C# expressions are evaluated strictly left to right, so if it had operator **, the order of evaluation would've been:

    tmp1 := x, tmp2 := y, tmp3 := z, tmp4 := tmp2 ** tmp3, yield tmp1 ** tmp4

And, eh, I am not really that convinced that

    a b * c d * x y * z t * p q * + + sqrt + +

is much less torturous than

    a * b + c * d + sqrt(x * y + z * t + p * q)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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Joker_vD2mo ago

My apologies, it should've been (if you insist on indentation)

        let a, b, c = 0, 1, 0
    fb_start:
        writen(a)
        b +:= a
        a :=
          b - a
        c +:= 1
        if c < 100 do
          goto fb-start

Would you care to elaborate about brackets helping with tracking the order of execution? I'm really curious about that part.

kazinator2mo ago

TXR Lisp, with infix via ifx macro:

  (ifx
    (let ((a 0) (b 1) (c 0))
      (tagbody
       fb-start
        (prinl a)
        (b += a)
        (a := b - a)
        (c += 1)
        (if (c < 100)
          (go fb-start)))))

tmtvlOP2mo ago

Well, the P in PEMDAS stands for 'brackets'. The clearest example, even though it's rather uncommon:

  a := x ** y ** z

(and that's hoping the language does the OOE for exponentiation arithmetically correctly) versus

  (setf a (expt x (expt y z)))

It's a bit like how Reverse Polish Notation is superior to the infix notation we torture ourselves with (x + y * z or (x + y) * z versus x y z * + or x y + z *).

Joker_vD2mo ago

But that's just associativity, not the order of evaluation? E.g. in C# expressions are evaluated strictly left to right, so if it had operator **, the order of evaluation would've been:

    tmp1 := x, tmp2 := y, tmp3 := z, tmp4 := tmp2 ** tmp3, yield tmp1 ** tmp4

And, eh, I am not really that convinced that

    a b * c d * x y * z t * p q * + + sqrt + +

is much less torturous than

    a * b + c * d + sqrt(x * y + z * t + p * q)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse