RE: questionable syntax choices

Thanks. While I somewhat agree with your points 1 and 2 (I would have
preferred {-- --}), I don't think one person's like or dislike of the
semantics is reason enough to change it given the potential disruption
to the general grammar.

 

Also, many modern languages use := for assignment since it is not the
same as the comparison =. And being able to express this semantics in a
non-context sensitive way seems better than the opposite.

 

Just speaking for myself....

Michael

 

________________________________

From: public-qt-comments-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-qt-comments-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Volkmann, Mark
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2004 5:28 AM
To: 'public-qt-comments@w3.org'
Subject: questionable syntax choices

 

I dove into learning about XQuery this weekend.  While I like what I
see, I think some questionable syntax choices have been made.  Here are
three of them.

1) Why is a semi-colon required at the end of a user-defined function
defintion?  It's clear that the end has been reached when '}' is
encountered.  I don't see how requiring a terminationg ';' makes parsing
any easier.  This is a known gotcha in C++.  I hate to see XQuery borrow
a syntax feature that is already a known issue.

2) Smilies are an odd choice for comment delimiters.  Why choose
something that isn't used by any other common programming languages?

3) Why use ':=' in let clauses instead of simply '='?  You know an
assignment is coming because of the presence of the keyword 'let'.  I
don't see how '=' could be confused for meaning something other than
assignment.



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