[Versa] Re: statements function

[Uche Ogbuji]

On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 14:07 -0400, Chimezie Ogbuji wrote:
> > > I like that.  Honestly, mostly because I think *something* has to be
> > > done about the ugliness of having to escape expressions passed around
> > > as strings.
> > 
> > That sounds like "I like my brother because he is my brother and I have
> > too" :)

Uh oh.  "Judge Ito, Mike Olson's playing the nepotism card, and he's
dealing it from the bottom of the deck!"

:-)

I guess you'll just have to get Randy Olson to come break the Ogbuji
hegemony.

> That's not really fair.  My point was that the current situation with
> having to escape expressions passed to functions that evaluate them on
> the fly good is so ridiculous that *any* suggestion is a good one. 
> I'm not tied to the specific anonymous function syntax used above, but
> I like the *general* idea of anonymous functions to solve that ugly
> problem.

I strongly agree, and let me just point out that I'm also receptive to
other ideas.  Again I was just offering any better way.  I do like the
idea of formalizing the concept as anonymous functions, but hey, there's
still space on the chalkboard.

> > I agree.  Would distribute, map, etc then take only anon functions (and
> > not sub queries as strings)?

Yes, please, indeedy!

> Wouldn't anon functions cover every situation where you *would* need
> to pass a string, as well as provide additional
> capability/flexibility?
> 
> > > So, what would this require of the grammar and the way current
> > > functions work? Simply to allow anonymous functions to be arguments to
> > > functions and expand how filtering functions work to include the use
> > > of anonymous functions?
> > >
> > 
> > I'll take another swing at the grammar if no one objects.
> > 
> > Mike
> 
> I don't.  I'm honestly better able to follow suggestions that are
> associated with a grammer rather than stand alone examples, mostly
> because Versa is very Lisp-like.

Yeah, man.  I'm trying to get Lambda the Ultimate to endorse Versa.

umm.  NOT!

But I'll still steal all the good ideas I can from Lisp, and leave the
clunky cruft behind.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                               Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net                    http://fourthought.com
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