Paren-free heads strawman

[Brendan Eich]

Braces required, see the old strawman.

/be

On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 9:18 AM Andreas Rossberg <rossberg at google.com> wrote:

> Will
>
>   if x (y) (z);
>
> parse as
>
>   if (x) ((y)(z));
>
> or
>
>   if (x(y)) (z);
>
> ? And how do you parse it without infinite look-ahead?
>
> /Andreas
>
>
> On 1 February 2016 at 17:01, kdex <kdex at kdex.de> wrote:
>
>> Well, try and define "natural" in the context of constructed languages.
>>
>> If this was a question of "naturalness" (whatever that may be), then
>> really any deviation from what the language currently is, is "unnatural".
>>
>> Anyway, we're here to discuss, not to blindly judge. :)
>>
>>
>>
>> Note that the parens serve no purpose whatsoever.
>>
>> They're actually just a relic dating back to Ken Thompson's
>> re-interpretation of BCPL, B (1969), which in turn did this, because in
>> FORTRAN,
>>
>> `if x` and `ifx` looked the same to the parser; the parens were thus
>> needed for the parser to differentiate between the two.
>>
>>
>>
>> Since C derived from B, virtually any language that derived from it
>> adapted to this redundant syntax; nowadays, the parens exist solely for
>> decoration.
>>
>>
>>
>> [Douglas Crockford](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlqv6NtBXcA) and
>> [Brendan Eich](https://brendaneich.com/2010/11/paren-free/) seem
>>
>> to be in favor of making them optional; that's why the strawman exists.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Montag, 1. Februar 2016 15:47:52 CET Alican Çubukçuoğlu wrote:
>>
>> > Isn't this very unnatural? If you are into this kind of thing, why don't
>>
>> > you code Coffee for example? (Or don't since saving a few keystrokes
>> isn't
>>
>> > worth your dignity.)
>>
>> >
>>
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>>
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