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  1. Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
  2. Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!cs.widener.edu!eff!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!linac!uchinews!alex!dave
  3. From: dave@alex.uchicago.edu (Dave Griffith)
  4. Subject: Re: how to advocate new software/hardware features (Re: Hardware Support for Numeric Algorithms)
  5. Message-ID: <1992Nov18.002115.12067@midway.uchicago.edu>
  6. Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
  7. Organization: University of Chicago
  8. References: <BxtFoF.BGn@mentor.cc.pur <KERS.92Nov17090305@cdollin.hpl.hp.com> <Bxvs9I.L22@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
  9. Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:21:15 GMT
  10. Lines: 21
  11.  
  12. In article <Bxvs9I.L22@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
  13. >
  14. >I agree that this complexity of syntax analysis is very weak.  Put one
  15. >precedence for unary operators and another for binary operators, or even
  16. >equate the infix notation x FOO y with !FOO(x,y); those of us who want 
  17. >to use user-defined operators would find this a lot preferable to not
  18. >allowing them at all, even if we had to use parentheses all the time.
  19.  
  20. So you're advocating that a programming language implement a syntax which
  21. is directly incompatible with that commonly used in mathematics. Addition, 
  22. multiplication, and exponentiation certainly have different precedences in
  23. common usage. How many times, I wonder, have you against precisely that sort 
  24. of language construction. 
  25.  
  26. However, you did suggest something that had been implemented dozens of times
  27. over the last twenty years.  There is still hope for you.
  28.  
  29. -- 
  30. Dave Griffith, Information Resources, University of Chicago,
  31. Department of Surgery                       dave@alex.bsd.uchicago.edu
  32. Strong currency, strong whiskey, and strong typing
  33.