an enhancement proposal for the language...

Andre Garzia andre at andregarzia.com
Tue Apr 26 06:02:00 EDT 2011


Hey Folks,

It is about 3:00 AM here and I am coding my presentation and while I was
struggling with the engine to get some stuff working I came to a realization
that was something short of an enlightenment moment for me. After thinking
for a while, I decided to submit this to this list for comments and approval
and then we can go forward with an enhancement request in the QA.

It is about syntax and encouraging the engine to be extraordinary. Sometimes
when you are not sure things will work as expected, you use a block like:

try
   ...
   ...
   ...
end try

I thought about it for a while and remembered master yoda saying: "do or do
not, try not" and realized that if tell the engine to try out something,
you're already telling him, hey this stuff might explode, try something...
The engine upon receiving a try request obviously enters a pessimistic mood
thinking about all the things that can go wrong and often dies a horrible
death. To avoid such cases and help the engine to fell encouraged to do his
best, I decided to revise that syntax. I propose the following:

please
   ...
   ...
   ...
end please

maybe if we asked nicely, the engine will give its best shot at executing
the commands inside the block. People often give their best when asked
politely. It is a proven studies by the "Andre Garzia School of Late Night
Caffeine" that asking "pretty please" at something is better than asking
"try".

If we decide to go forware with the transition to a more uplift engine,
we'll also need to revise things like

try
   ...
   ...
   ...
catch
   ...
end try


After all what does "catch" means (my guess is the engine shouting 'catch
that running exception' with a cop voice). Catch will not work with
please... so I think we should do:

please
   ...
   ...
   ...
oh no
   ...
   ...
end please

"oh no" is better than catch and quickly summarizes the state of mind that a
developer should be if he ever faces that specific part of the code.

With these additions, I believe we'll have a happier engine and better
development experience.

Cheers
andre
-- 
http://www.andregarzia.com All We Do Is Code.



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