Re: Proposals for changes to current datatyping spec

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Patrick Stickler wrote:

[explanation cut]

> Is that any clearer?

Your point of view is explicitly clear; however, I don't consider the
situation it describes to be "clear". I'll shut up though because I want
to hear what others have to say on this.

>
> > ... which is why I suggested Datatype is a superfluous extension
> > (particularly since it seems that all literals should carry a type, but
> > I don't wish to descend into "dogmatic assertions" here :-) )
>
> I agree fully that all literals should carry a type, explicit or implicit,
> and this is the untidy view. Or rather, to avoid an untidy treatment,
> we'd the need to disallow inlined literals entirely, making all literals
> typed literal nodes.

Yes, I like two of the the options you outlined in the appendixes for
treatment of inline literals - either pick a "default" type (which is
ugly but easy) or use the untidy "mutable type" option, which I find
quite compelling, although I confess I've not looked closely at
technical consequences.


-- 
jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44(0)117 9287088 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 http://ioctl.org/jan/
Semantic rules, OK?

Received on Thursday, 5 September 2002 05:54:37 UTC