Re: A question about syntax or semantics

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Adam Beneschan" <adambeneschan@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:79ced891-4a1a-4008-ade8-875228e5dc03@googlegroups.com...
On Saturday, May 17, 2014 3:56:20 PM UTC-7, Victor Porton wrote:
...
>> Why it is significant to have it only for the first formal parameter?
>>
>> Please explain with examples.
>
>Well, this thread took some pretty bizarre turns, for reasons I don't 
>understand.

(1) It's mid-May - aka, Finals time.
(2) The question is believable, but the "please explain with examples" is a 
weird demand; it doesn't seem to relate to the question. The only place I'd 
expect such a demand is in an essay question in an exam.

>This looks more like a "why did the language designers do it this way" 
>question than an exam question to me...

Could be. But is there any other sane choice? I don't think we (the ARG, aka 
the language designers) spent 1 minute on any other possible meaning of this 
construct. (Some of the details, like tagged-only versus any type, took a 
lot longer, and how to describe it in the standard was tricky, but there 
never was any doubt about the basic meaning.) I'm actually quite surprised 
that you managed to think of other possible meanings and make them sound 
semi-plausible. :-)

Ergo (3), the question seems contrived, since there isn't any other sensible 
option. That's more of a characteristic of an exam question than a real 
question.

Of course, we all could be wrong. You've done a fine job of answering the 
question in that case.

                               Randy.