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`in` and `out` would have been the familiar choice, but I think Blech made the better one. They sort of wink at this in the documentation, by naming parameters

`in` and `out` would have been the familiar choice, but I think Blech made the better one. They sort of wink at this in the documentation, by naming parameters in and out, but more than just freeing a couple nice names from being keywords, this spare notation is a good fit, read vs. read+write is a crucial distinction in embedded. In particular, a function with one parameter list can only read the variables, and that is as clear at the call site as it is on declaration. This is a nice property to have!

myrmidon 4y ago
I also kinda like it , but I believe this implies that function types either can't be first class values or that parsing needs full type information because otherwise you couldn't distinguish between single and chained calls-- or am I missing something?
- samatman 4y ago
  I wouldn't call C functions first class either, it's a fuzzy term though. Function pointers, yes, and that's another place where it's pretty cool that there are two distinct parameter lists. I just found Blech this morning so I don't know how it deals with function pointers. Competently, I'm guessing.
- samatman 4y ago
  Completely missed your point in a sibling reply, let me try again. Returning a function pointer should be ok, chain syntax is a sugaring which is probably not high-payoff in an embedded language. So would explicitly capture the pointer as a stack variable and then use it, three parentheses would be illegal instead of ambiguous. Seems reasonable to me.
lifthrasiir 4y ago
Syntax only distinguished by a relative order doesn't sound robust to me. In contemporary languages keyword arguments are a thing exactly because of that. Marginally related example: many wiki syntaxes had a link syntax similar to `[[foo|bar]]`, where `foo` and `bar` can be either a label or a target and the order wildly varied across softwares---later lightweight markup languages had their lessons and used a different syntax for a label and a target (e.g. Markdown `[label](target)`).
- samatman 4y ago
  I don't think that's a problem here. There are three options, function(val), function(valA)(valB), and function()(val). I read the manual once this morning before coffee and I know which vals are read only and which are writeable. I've never written a line of Blech. That's pretty good design if you ask me.

myrmidon 4y ago

I also kinda like it , but I believe this implies that function types either can't be first class values or that parsing needs full type information because otherwise you couldn't distinguish between single and chained calls-- or am I missing something?

samatman 4y ago
I wouldn't call C functions first class either, it's a fuzzy term though. Function pointers, yes, and that's another place where it's pretty cool that there are two distinct parameter lists. I just found Blech this morning so I don't know how it deals with function pointers. Competently, I'm guessing.
samatman 4y ago
Completely missed your point in a sibling reply, let me try again. Returning a function pointer should be ok, chain syntax is a sugaring which is probably not high-payoff in an embedded language. So would explicitly capture the pointer as a stack variable and then use it, three parentheses would be illegal instead of ambiguous. Seems reasonable to me.

lifthrasiir 4y ago

Syntax only distinguished by a relative order doesn't sound robust to me. In contemporary languages keyword arguments are a thing exactly because of that. Marginally related example: many wiki syntaxes had a link syntax similar to `[[foo|bar]]`, where `foo` and `bar` can be either a label or a target and the order wildly varied across softwares---later lightweight markup languages had their lessons and used a different syntax for a label and a target (e.g. Markdown `[label](target)`).

samatman 4y ago
I don't think that's a problem here. There are three options, function(val), function(valA)(valB), and function()(val). I read the manual once this morning before coffee and I know which vals are read only and which are writeable. I've never written a line of Blech. That's pretty good design if you ask me.