[Cuis-dev] Language constructs

[ken.dickey at whidbey.com]

On 2020-05-01 00:45, Erik Stel via Cuis-dev wrote:

> Maybe I wasn't clear (because it was part of another topic, see below) 
> or tread on a sensitive subject, but I'm still eager to hear the 
> reasoning for having backticks (which are not in Squeak nor Pharo) from 
> the simplicity point of view. Would anyone care to elaborate?
> 
> I am also eager to know what others think about language constructs 
> such as #(), {} and `` for daily usage. And I mean this in the sense 
> 'Do you use these often? Could you live without them?'. I do understand 
> how they can be used and what their meaning is ;-). And I can also 
> lookup their current use in the default image, but that does not answer 
> how you/we use them in our (application) code.

Erik,

I think that array literals are quite useful.  As we move toward 
multi-core VMs, marking out constant data and using functional data 
structures (e.g. ropes), lockless queueing, and so forth are  becoming 
more important.  Also, more interactions with GPUs favors cheap copies 
-- constants allow for that.  Simplifies the deep semantics.

Not sure of the `#history`.

Oh, BTW, we should add something to the #syntax section of the Terse 
Guide on :: ; `` et al.

Cheers,
-KenD