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The ambiguity had a clearly proposed fix in the issue thread: use () for array access. Just like in scala. Lots of people were clamoring for the change, and th

The ambiguity had a clearly proposed fix in the issue thread: use () for array access. Just like in scala. Lots of people were clamoring for the change, and the only unaddressed opposition to it was from those that explicitly wanted to cater to the c++ familiarity.

dbaupp 12y ago
Using () doesn't work without introducing yet more concepts to the language, to make both let element: i32 = some_integer_array(i); let reference: &i32 = &some_integer_array(i); work. In particular, the second one should give a reference to the element inside the array. I believe Scala doesn't have to deal with this subtlety, since everything is a pointer and generally the precise location of things in memory isn't so important. This issue is definitely not insurmountable, but it is also definitely not a simple direct replacement.
- frowaway001 12y ago
  some_integer_array.at(i)
  - dbaupp 12y ago
    Has the same problem, we can't support the syntax: let integer: i32 = some_integer_array.at(i); let reference: &i32 = &some_integer_array.at(i); with the desired semantics, without introducing new language concepts. In any case, we did use methods for indexing vectors for a while and it was quite annoying; the shorter syntax is nice.
    - frowaway001 12y ago
      I don't think you are getting it.
      - scott_s 12y ago
        For the record, dbaupp is on the core team for Rust. But can you explain it to me? Because his explanation makes sense to me: they can't support that syntax, including getting references, without introducing new concepts. How does what your proposing get around introducing those new concepts?
        frowaway001 12y ago
        For the record, Rasmus Lerdorf is on the core team for PHP. When I said "some_integer_array.at(i)" I certainly didn't mean "rename both things". Alternatively, having one additional magic kind/trait/... to denote "addressable" would be more manageable than shoe-horning things into the language's syntax which can – at this change – not be fixed anymore.
      - dbaupp 12y ago
        Yes, I'm absolutely not getting it. You're also not explaining it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

dbaupp 12y ago

Using () doesn't work without introducing yet more concepts to the language, to make both let element: i32 = some_integer_array(i); let reference: &i32 = &some_integer_array(i); work. In particular, the second one should give a reference to the element inside the array. I believe Scala doesn't have to deal with this subtlety, since everything is a pointer and generally the precise location of things in memory isn't so important. This issue is definitely not insurmountable, but it is also definitely not a simple direct replacement.

frowaway001 12y ago
some_integer_array.at(i)
- dbaupp 12y ago
  Has the same problem, we can't support the syntax: let integer: i32 = some_integer_array.at(i); let reference: &i32 = &some_integer_array.at(i); with the desired semantics, without introducing new language concepts. In any case, we did use methods for indexing vectors for a while and it was quite annoying; the shorter syntax is nice.
  - frowaway001 12y ago
    I don't think you are getting it.
    - scott_s 12y ago
      For the record, dbaupp is on the core team for Rust. But can you explain it to me? Because his explanation makes sense to me: they can't support that syntax, including getting references, without introducing new concepts. How does what your proposing get around introducing those new concepts?
      - frowaway001 12y ago
        For the record, Rasmus Lerdorf is on the core team for PHP. When I said "some_integer_array.at(i)" I certainly didn't mean "rename both things". Alternatively, having one additional magic kind/trait/... to denote "addressable" would be more manageable than shoe-horning things into the language's syntax which can – at this change – not be fixed anymore.
    - dbaupp 12y ago
      Yes, I'm absolutely not getting it. You're also not explaining it.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]