From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony) Subject: Re: OO, C++, and something much better! Date: 1997/02/22 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 220558887 Distribution: world References: <5de62l$f13$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> Organization: PSI Public Usenet Link Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.object Date: 1997-02-22T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <5eb4s4$jj5$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: > There is a useful *syntactic* distinction between ^^^^^^ > "normal functions" f(x), g(x, y) > "operators" f x x g y > "special syntax" <> x[y] I'm not convinced. Pleasant perhaps, but really useful? In what way? > >Note that I pointed out that "+" was one of a special set of message > >selectors whose meaning was defined by the langauge. The difference is > >that there is nothing special about the syntax of "+" (that does not > >also apply to any other binary message selector). > > So how on earth is this supposed to make it _not_ an operator? Simple. For Alan the term "operator" should be distinguished by its semantic. In particular, that there is something "special" about its semantic. Syntax would be irrelevant. Whether he is correct about this wrt Smalltalk is irrelevant. OTOH, as you point out (and as Piercarlo has attempted to point out in a sea of confusions) the use of the term in PL land definitely _has_ become associated with _syntactical_ specialness and no amount of wishing otherwise is going to do Alan any good. Just like, no amount of weird wishing on the part of Piercarlo is going to make mathematicians start thinking that they should (as he seems to want) drop the semantic distinguishing of "operator" and "operation" as a special case of functions. His wish makes Alan's look positively reasonable. > >And if ALL functions are operators, then the distinction is meaningless: > >the difference that makes no difference is not a real difference. > > But "all functions are operators" is YOUR definition. > Remember that MY definition is I think he really wants to go the other way around: operators are a proper subset of functions and this is based on a _semantic_ trait not a syntactical trait. Of course his "definition" may have blown it, I don't really recall what it was. Actually, I don't think he ever clearly said what he thought this semantic trait should be. > I've deleted a large chunk of your message without replying to it in > detail because I am finding this remarkably tedious. Yes, I can agree with this. The whole problem revolves around the fact that people have a presupposed notion of what they think the _kind_ of distinguishing trait of an opertor is. > D. I'm sick of this thread. Can't disagree with that! :-) /Jon -- Jon Anthony Organon Motives, Inc. Belmont, MA 02178 617.484.3383 jsa@organon.com