DefMod Syntax

[Tony van der Hoff]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, at 17:09:06, Jonathan Coxhead
<jonathan at doves.demon.co.uk> wrote on the subject "DefMod Syntax":

>   (1) On message structure names ....
>
>   That's fine. :-)
>
OK ;-)

>   (2) On message structure member names ...
>
>   This is how I understand the problem.
>
<snip>
>
>   I think Tony says the base; Tom and I say the extension.
>
Hmm, yes.

<snips>

>   See how the forms across the equal signs in A are almost a pure 
>syntactical rearrangement, with the same semantic components arranged 
>in a different way? 

<<sees light>>

>That's the aim, as it allows less thought to be 
>used when rewriting code, and therefore fewer mistakes. (The 
>discipline of Logic was once defined to me as "a means for avoiding 
>thought." :-)
>
That was a pretty powerful explanation. You are, of course, once again,
absolutely right! 

>   I think Tom agrees with this, so this is what we will be getting 
>in the gadget case. Good!

Yes, yes, OK - No need to rub it in ;-)
>
>   I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself here, but there seems to be some 
>communication problem---I don't really understand Tony's "more 
>backwards compatibility" argument at all.
>
I guess I ought to be the one to apologise for being a bit dense on the
matter :-(

>   But if I have have failed to convince, oh dear!
>
No, you succeeded, but what was the "oh dear" for?
I'll now set about conjuring up names for the extended structures :-)
-- 
Tony van der Hoff         |  Mailto:tony at mk-net.demon.co.uk
                          |  Mailto:avanderhoff at iee.org
Buckinghamshire, England  |  http:www.mk-net.demon.co.uk