From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ted Zlatanov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: plists, alists, and hashtables Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:08:39 -0400 Organization: =?utf-8?B?0KLQtdC+0LTQvtGAINCX0LvQsNGC0LDQvdC+0LI=?= @ Cienfuegos Message-ID: <871tfgt99k.fsf@lifelogs.com> References: <876150vwaa.fsf@mbork.pl> <873803x5q4.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87a8u7we9s.fsf_-_@lifelogs.com> <02f81836-554f-4bb4-873b-85c24e080e3d@googlegroups.com> <87614uqn5l.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87d1z2ukw1.fsf@lifelogs.com> <878u9pps1c.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87oailbn8t.fsf@lifelogs.com> <87vbcto2ya.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87si7wtpib.fsf@lifelogs.com> <8737zwntla.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1438895540 22105 80.91.229.3 (6 Aug 2015 21:12:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 21:12:20 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 06 23:12:16 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZNSSU-0001NP-OI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 06 Aug 2015 23:12:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46718 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZNSSU-0000pB-4s for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:12:14 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!feeder.erje.net!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!news.albasani.net!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 45 Original-X-Trace: news.albasani.net oR7PNok913UoMXtCO4bA7wgYkq/Hz/A+toV9vafvJb7es9x7selnQ7hI6joW20QQls1vrvCKsRL4FZzO5L7+gQ== Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 21:08:39 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: news.albasani.net; logging-data="QB4B7Sz0ohMDQdEM+pv6yZIKTUNzjmRBoe5h+j04t1AIKo4e2efHqfHQz6acfti0+iRZhc71LQwoF9EhGcB/IMU0iQ33z5hMJTkPjkTiJNlV+CrWo/V3C7vogqAmw1m5"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@albasani.net" User-Agent: Gnus/5.130012 (Ma Gnus v0.12) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-Face: bd.DQ~'29fIs`T_%O%C\g%6jW)yi[zuz6; d4V0`@y-~$#3P_Ng{@m+e4o<4P'#(_GJQ%TT= D}[Ep*b!\e,fBZ'j_+#"Ps?s2!4H2-Y"sx" Cancel-Lock: sha1:KMCoNZTdM1R0mFMEersRWTPqMhI= sha1:mfdCwWNbazKGilO+AQya08C6Zto= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:214017 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:106302 Archived-At: On Thu, 06 Aug 2015 20:46:09 +0200 "Pascal J. Bourguignon" wrote: PJB> Ted Zlatanov writes: >> OK, it's possible, but that's a terrible syntax. Maps should *look* >> different from lists and their keys and values, in particular, should be >> easily distinguished from each other. PJB> Why? Because I don't want to look at (a b c d e f g h) and count until I find that g is a key and h is a value. That's dumb and leads to mistakes. PJB> Additionnal syntaxes can be useful, and should only be used, for end PJB> users and DSL implementing a domain with pre-existing _extensive_ use of PJB> that syntax. My claim, I guess, is that general ELisp programming involves an extensive use of maps, so it could use a syntax for it. I am not making any philosophical claims about the essence of Lisp. PJB> But maps are not something out of this lisp world. They existed from PJB> the start as a-list, then p-list and then hash-tables. They are a basic PJB> data structure perfectly integrated to an algorithmic programming PJB> language, and don't constitute a different, Domain Specific Language. I've given examples of why lists, in my opinion, don't make a good read syntax for maps. If that's not enough to convince people, then it's not a good idea. PJB> Therefore « and » are very confusing characters to choose for maps. OK, that's fine. I really don't want to care about the choice of markers. It's completely irrelevant to me. It could be "Pascal" on the left and "Bourguignon" on the right, with "J" as the cell separator. PJB> Then you will have to patch all the editors in the world (not only PJB> emacs, people also use vim, textmate, eclipse, notepad, etc to edit PJB> lisp), to teach them about this → that is not inside the parentheses… Yup. I agree that adoption will be painful and slow, but it has to start somewhere. Ted