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Re: Translation for extension is a bad idea



> From: Lalo Martins <lalo@hackandroll.org>
> 
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 03:16:19PM -0700, Michael Vanier wrote:
> > 
> > However, the original goal of translators (to supply dialects of guile
> > which don't have the parenthesized-prefix syntax for those who consider it
> > distasteful) is, I believe, a good one.  Therefore, I'd rather see
> > something like CTAX (with a better name, please) be developed as the
> > "official infix syntax for guile" rather than lots of translators from tcl,
> > python, perl etc. to guile.  Too many people are scared away from lisp-like
> > languages due to the unfamiliar syntax; if we can ease their
> > transition/enlightenment, we will benefit.  The language Objective Caml
> > provides a very powerful preprocessor which can be used to modify the
> > entire surface syntax of the language; in principle, guile could have
> > something like this too.  However, this is a far cry from supporting (say)
> > perl semantics in ocaml or guile (*shudder*).
> 
> As a deviation from my usual stance of supporting translators,
> I have to step up to support this point of view. Guile's
> support for three or four languages created specifically for
> Guile (but "similar" to some others) will _always_ be better
> and more full-featured than its support for tcl, python, perl
> etc. Actually there is already a postfixed dialect for Guile
> (it's called Sonya).
> 
> []s,
>                                                |alo
>                                                +----

Sounds fascinating.  What is the status of the Sonya dialect?  Is there any
documentation/sources available?  And what is the motivation for a postfix
dialect (other than coolness)?

Mike


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