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0 pointscesarb5y ago0 comments

I would say the try!() macro is an exception to that rule: if the ? operator existed since the beginning, it would be seen as "too much magic" (in a language that already used up most of its "strangeness budget" in lifetimes/borrowing), while try!() is just a very simple macro you could write yourself, with no special compiler support. Only later, after people got used to try!() everywhere, the ? operator became viable, as "just a shortcut to try!() with better precedence (and it also works on Option)".

That is, there's a path dependence, where the existence of try!() made the ? operator viable.

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jasode5y ago

>if the ? operator existed since the beginning, it would be seen as "too much magic" [...] That is, there's a path dependence, where the existence of try!() made the ? operator viable.

Yes, C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup made a similar observation:

- For new features, people insist on LOUD explicit syntax.

- For established features, people want terse notation.

There seems to be an invisible "Overton Window" of evolving programming language features and syntax.

zanny5y ago

Having both the terse and the verbose is so valuable for onboarding.

I feel like the reason pointers as a mechanism in native languages is such a barrier to cross for a newbie is because they are this magical star symbol * just floating around doing... something?

If people started out writing pointer<string> foo instead of string* foo and had to use explicit derefrencing via name rather than by magical glyphs onboarding would be so much easier.

I think it applies to almost all programming concepts too. Starting a language with a baseline grammar of just function invocation -f(x) = y as <noun>.<verb>(<noun>...) - and extrapolating from there and introducing terse grammar progressively as shortcuts would serve much better to get concepts in heads rather than arcane ritualistic glyphs. Introduce x.add(y) then say x + y is the shorthand.

Rust does a really great job "functionizing" almost everything in the language - it has the add trait after all https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ops/trait.Add.html. You can actually write tons of Rust in just function call form and make it look like Lisp.

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