03:26 pm, 19 Feb 04
whitespace
Section 2.7 of the Haskell report (bottom of here) talks about their "layout". (See the very bottom for an example.)
This is neat. The language is defined with braces and semicolons. But:
I remember the first time I tried to embed Python into a web page and I realized I had to figure out how to make the whitespace work out so my if statements would work. Haskell's system allows really simple and good-looking code for the common case (I don't think I've ever seen a curly brace in any Haskell code) but still can be defined as whitespace-insensitive.
By the way, Haskell code is totally hot. Even though I still can't figure out how to use it.
(Cut 'cause I'm afraid I'm posting too much.)
This is neat. The language is defined with braces and semicolons. But:
Haskell permits the omission of the braces and semicolons used in several grammar productions, by using layout to convey the same information. This allows both layout-sensitive and layout-insensitive styles of coding, which can be freely mixed within one program. Because layout is not required, Haskell programs can be straightforwardly produced by other programs.
I remember the first time I tried to embed Python into a web page and I realized I had to figure out how to make the whitespace work out so my if statements would work. Haskell's system allows really simple and good-looking code for the common case (I don't think I've ever seen a curly brace in any Haskell code) but still can be defined as whitespace-insensitive.
By the way, Haskell code is totally hot. Even though I still can't figure out how to use it.
(Cut 'cause I'm afraid I'm posting too much.)
I'm not a fan of dropping delimiters -- they're useful information, and what's wrong with a little bit of redundancy, if it gives you extra context clues when you're moving code around? Python in particular is frustratingly half-assed: it has an open-block delimiter, but no close-block delimiter! And it requires consistent indentation, but it doesn't go all the way and require a particular amount of indentation, which makes cutting and pasting code between files written by different authors a nightmare.
The ability to mix layout-sensitive and layout-insensitive code within a single program doesn't strike me as a feature.
Re:
This is why I'm not a python fan :)Seriously, I think the main reason I like C/C++ so much is the whitespace-agnosticism; although I often run code through indent (I don't mind a reasonably consistent layout, I just don't want it forced on me on all occasions) it's nice to be able to fiddle with the layout of particular bits of code to make them more readable. Oh, and the whole tabs versus spaces thing ... ack!
And .. seconded. Evan, keep posting. You and
spot keep me sane on the geek post front.