Expression closures - use-cases for shortcut lambda syntax (blocks)

[Neil Mix]

> Let me see if I understand your proposal.

Bleh.  I should have known better.

Let me re-iterate: I'm *not* proposing that syntax.  I was (poorly)  
illustrating my assertion about the true cause of illegibility in the  
use of anonymous functions as parameters.

If someone smarter than me can work up a non-alien syntax for  
anonymous functions that reduces the number of parens and curlies,  
more power to them.  As for me, I'm now regretting that I've confused  
this thread so thoroughly, and am distancing myself from the idea  
altogether.

Back to the original topic, and speaking of reducing the number of  
parens and curlies, one thing I forgot to do in my rewrite of  
Robert's mochikit examples was to make use of the new expression  
closure capabilities in es4.  With those, we can change one of the  
more "painful" examples from this:

addLoadEvent(function(){
     connect('bad_example','onclick',
         function(e){signal 
('bad_example','showvalue',"explicit_value")});
     connect('bad_example','showvalue',window,'alert');

     connect('good_example','onclick',
         function(e){signal(randomObj,'showvalue',"explicit_value")});
     connect(randomObj,'showvalue',window,'alert');
});

to this:

addLoadEvent(function(){
     connect('bad_example','onclick',
         function(e) signal 
('bad_example','showvalue',"explicit_value"));
     connect('bad_example','showvalue',window,'alert');

     connect('good_example','onclick',
         function(e) signal(randomObj,'showvalue',"explicit_value"));
     connect(randomObj,'showvalue',window,'alert');
});

Now, adding in the \( lambda syntax under consideration, we get this:

addLoadEvent(function(){
     connect('bad_example','onclick',
         \(e) signal('bad_example','showvalue',"explicit_value"));
     connect('bad_example','showvalue',window,'alert');

     connect('good_example','onclick',
         \(e) signal(randomObj,'showvalue',"explicit_value"));
     connect(randomObj,'showvalue',window,'alert');
});


I believe there's a correlation between the size of the lambda and  
the improved legibility with this shortcut -- the smaller the lambda,  
the more helpful the shortcut is.  For example, change something like  
this:

addLoadEvent(function(){
     connect('bad_example','onclick',
         function(e){signal('bad_example)});
     connect('bad_example','showvalue',window,'alert');

     connect('good_example','onclick',
         function(e){signal(randomObj)});
     connect(randomObj,'showvalue',window,'alert');
});

to this:

addLoadEvent(function(){
     connect('bad_example','onclick', \(e) signal('bad_example'));
     connect('bad_example','showvalue',window,'alert');

     connect('good_example','onclick', \(e) signal(randomObj));
     connect(randomObj,'showvalue',window,'alert');
});

I defer to others for thoughts and opinions.