[Bese-devel] Re: Reader macro

[Marco Baringer]

"Levente Mészáros" <levente.meszaros at gmail.com> writes:

> At least SBCL does not seem to worry too much about #< I think it does not
> treat the specs so strictly. Is there any important thing that is broken by
> this reader macro other than not signaling a reader error? Maybe we could
> enable and disable this syntax locally per file.

it breaks a long, and deeply ingrained, trait of the reader. i can't
come up with a good technical reason, but for the sake of respecting
the standard (and history) shouldn't do this.

> Personally I don't like the #T< because it's too complicated to type in. Maybe
> ##< (if it is possible at all?)

i don't like #T< either, i don't like #{ or #[ but i think i could get
used to them. the other option is to use plain <, but this could get
ugly very quickly. examples:

#{div :foo "bar" #{div :bar "foo"}}

vs

#[div :foo "bar" #[div :bar "foo"]]

vs

#T<div :foo "bar" #T<div :bar "foo">>

vs

<div :foo "bar" <div :bar "foo">>

the advantage to using { and [ would be some integration with emacs'
sexp editing commands (though we'd probably want to avoid [ so that we
don't break cl-sql).

> The other suggestion would be a big win if it is possible, but I tried and
> could not figure out how to do it reading the specs.

i'm pretty sure you can't do it portabliy (or even reliably).

-- 
-Marco
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget the perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
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