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When if is just a function

ryelang.org

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Re: When if is just a function

#11

Post by blauditore »

middayc wrote: post #10
icepat wrote: post #7

Is this just a quirk in my display, or are all the code blocks in this formatted like a CIA black highlighter

I checked in Firefox and Chrome (on Linux) and code samples look OK to me. What browser/OS are you using. Maybe send me a screenshot at janko dot itm at gmail.

Same here. I guess it's an issue with (system) dark theme (you can simulate that in dev tools. Android here, so must be Chrome.

Re: When if is just a function

#12

Post by ivanjermakov »

The drawback is that this approach elevates code blocks to first class. It means that there is a semantical difference between a value that is a block and a value that is a result of a block. This reduces code clarity, because now block def/result is discriminated by context instead of syntax.

- closures get tricky, i.e. having outer scoped variables within a block

- inter-block operators still need special care, e.g. return should return from a function or a nearest block, same for break/continue/etc.

Re: When if is just a function

#13

Post by sebastianconcpt »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #8

Smalltalk, anyone? I guess the OO version.

Yeah, here. They should know the feeling of booleans as instances and ifTrue: ifFalse: as methods. But for us is such an obvious thing that isn't really something too remarkable. It normalized language awesomeness.

Re: When if is just a function

#14

Post by hatthew »

This is interesting, but I'm not convinced it's better than the python it's being compared to. Memorizing and understanding the behavior of functions that perform control flow seems no easier than memorizing and understanding hardcoded syntax/keywords. The additional flexibility of making everything a first-class citizen allows people to write code that is too clever for its own good. I could be wrong but I think there is a broad consensus that reflection is a Bad Idea.

Open to being convinced otherwise

(tangent but related, aren't the "Loops" and "Iteration" examples given for python literally the exact same syntax, with the exception of changing how the iterable is generated?)

Re: When if is just a function

#16

Post by spankalee »

I wish they showed the `else` syntax, because the traditional ALGOL-style if-then-else statement doesn't look native when shoved into most function call notations, unless you have something pretty interesting around named parameters and expressions delimiters.

Re: When if is just a function

#17

Post by singlow »

icepat wrote: post #7

Is this just a quirk in my display, or are all the code blocks in this formatted like a CIA black highlighter

It's only a problem if I have my browser set to use dark theme or system theme and my system theme is dark if I switch it to light theme. Everything looks good. So most likely he's using some kind of CSS framework that's automatically responding to the dark theme, but other styles that he's hand coded are not compatible with it

Re: When if is just a function

#20

Post by middayc »

spankalee wrote: post #16

I wish they showed the `else` syntax, because the traditional ALGOL-style if-then-else statement doesn't look native when shoved into most function call notations, unless you have something pretty interesting around named parameters and expressions delimiters.

there is no if { } else { } in REBOL or Rye and it wouldn't really fit. There is either function that accepts two code blocks. It can act as a typical if / else or as a ternary expression as it also returns the result of a block:

    print either pwd = "correct" { "Hello" } { "Locked" }
This is Rebol's doc on either, Rye's works exactly the same: https://www.rebol.com/docs/words/weither.html
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