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From: kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin)
Subject: Re: New Default Syntax
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In-Reply-To: sfk@com.hp.hpl.hplb's message of 27 Nov 1995 18:00:20 -0000
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 17:32:07 GMT
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sfk@com.hp.hpl.hplb (Steve Knight) writes:

   Aaron Sloman writes:
   > All sorts of students and teachers are going to complain about this
   > change. I think a dreadful design decision has been taken, in complete
   > disregard of the needs of students and teachers, who are, at present,
   > the main users of Pop-11, and are likely to be for the foreseeable
   > future.

   On the other hand, those of us at HP will breath a sigh of relief. 

You might, Steve; but I've been using a define_form for yonks (``define
:proc'') which means that I've not had to worry about what the Pop11 
parameter default is. What's more, it also allows me to write updaters as

	define :proc v -> f(x) as ...

which is much more suggestive about how it gets used.

In the light of other comments in this exchange, I think I'll also update
it so that lvars are required to be defined when declared (and to use a
version of ``for'' that declares its index variables!).

--

Regards,    | ``"I can't suit myself," said Weinbaum, a little petulantly.
Kers.       | "I work for the Government".'' - Blish, "The Quincunx of Time".
