Lambda (was: Refactoring in Tunes)

[Jim Little]

btanksley@hifn.com wrote:
> No, I don't know that -- in fact, I disagree stridently with it.  A computer
> language is nothing BUT a UI.  It's an interface between the programmer and
> the machine.

I think what Laurent is getting at here is that the syntax of the
language can be separated from the semantics of the language.  I think
Laurent's further point is that type annotations do not affect the
semantics of the language, and thus they shouldn't be a part of the core
language.  However, they are useful, so they should be a "standard"
extension.

When you think of having multiple syntaxes that are related to but
separate from the semantics of the language, it all starts to make
sense: most syntaxes could support the standard type annotation
extension in whatever way is most useful, but for those implementations
that are highly constrained, the annotation could be left out.

At least, that's my take on it.  I think separating semantics from
syntax (what Laurent calls "UI") is a very good approach, and I also
think identifying a core set of semantics with optional
semantically-null standard extensions is also a good approach.  (But I'm
biased, because that's the approach I'm enabling with the Prism
metacode. :) )

Anyway, I don't mean to speak for Laurent, but I thought I might be able
to clear things up a bit.

Jim


(The Prism metacode is described at
http://www.teleport.com/~sphere/documents/001c/7/index.html.)