Re: Improving aesthetics & readability of backquote

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Paul.

On Mon, May 20, 2019 at 23:25:13 +1000, Paul W. Rankin wrote:

> On Mon, May 20 2019, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> > Sorry, I can't make anything out of that paragraph.  What meaning?
> > What relation to what?  Which code alone?

> The \` symbol is an alias to backquote, and the word "backquote" 
> only describes the symbol, i.e. circular semantics.

OK, thanks.  "Backquote" partially describes what the operator does,
i.e. it quotes.  Sort of.

> >> I suggest that we could introduce some aliases and augment the
> >> reader constucts a little to make them more aesthetically pleasing
> >> and more readable.

> > I don't agree with you that (quote foo) is more readable than 'foo.
> > I would find (quote foo) tiring to write, and (more importantly)
> > tiring to read.  I believe very early lisps were lacking the '
> > operator.  (quoteval foo) would be even worse for me.

> I'm using "readability" in the sense of reader comprehension, not 
> eyestrain.

So was I.

> >> If it remains unclear, my suggestion is not to supplant the
> >> original syntax; I position this suggestion in a similar vein as
> >> the rx library.

The two are different.  Regexp strings, like

   "\\([{}();:,<]+\\)\\|^\\s *\\(#\\)\\s *define[ \t]+\\(\\sw\\|_\\)+\\([^(a-zA-Z0-9_]\\|$\\)"

are hard to read and decipher.  rx is an attempt to make it clearer to
read regexps.  On the contrary, ` and , and ,@ are easy to read, the
difficulty being in their semantics.

Back in the 1950s, the language Cobol was invented with just this
premise.  It was thought that

    ADD 2 TO X GIVING Y

would be easier for beginners (i.e. managers) to understand than

    Y = X + 2;

Language design has gone firmly in the opposite direction since then,
emphasising conciseness.

> > But code has to be maintained, and everybody would have to know the
> > meaning of these new aliases, and be practiced with them, to be able
> > to maintain code using them.

> Hence the choice of clear, easily understandable aliases.

I don't think they're easily understandable.  They lack the clarity and
distinctiveness of `, ,, and ,@.

> > I'm afraid I'm against such changes.

> I'm proposing an addition, not changes.

An addition is a change, and it would affect all project members.  As I
said, I'm against this change.

> See the aforementioned rx library; its relationship to regular
> expression in Emacs Lisp should be instructive.

> -- 
> https://www.paulwrankin.com

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).