Re: Dot Syntax docs missing?
Re: Dot Syntax docs missing?
- Subject: Re: Dot Syntax docs missing?
- From: Bill Royds <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:36:35 -0400
On 19-Jul-08, at 22:42:05 , Marcel Weiher <email@hidden>
wrote:
On Jul 19, 2008, at 18:34 , Ian Joyner wrote:
On 19/07/2008, at 11:36 PM, Michael Ash wrote:
The universe of programming languages extends far beyond this little
island of ALGOL-lookalikes. Objective-C messaging syntax is utterly
mundane compared to many common, useful syntaxes used in practical
(but different) languages every day. IMO you do yourself a
disservice
if you don't branch out and try some different things once in a
while,
and remember that they're just programming languages, and syntax is
just syntax, nothing really all that important.
Except that syntax is the medium to convey meaning, thus to make it
easier for others to understand what a program is about. If it were
not so, we may as well have stuck to programming machine language
in 1s and 0s. Thus syntax is important... or at least the
manifestation of that which is important.
Yep. For example, the Smalltalk syntax that Objective-C's 'bracket'
syntax is based on went through several iterations until they found
one that gave the most readable and predictable results.
Funny. I find the Objective-C syntax much cleaner than the C++
template based syntax, especially the complicated method call syntax.
I started Object oriented programming with Simula 67, then Smalltalk,
so C++ was the anomaly, not Objective-C.
Syntax ease depends on your experience as much as inherent difficulty.
I find that I use dot syntax for value (including property)
extraction, while bracket for message passing. That makes my code
easier to scan looking for calls versus value change.
Bill Royds
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