Re: parsing with user defined operators

Our esteemed moderator writes:
> [It shouldn't be hard to concoct an operator precedence parser that can
> do that, but I don't think it's a very good idea. User extensible syntax
> was fashionable 20 years ago but now nobody bothers because it's so
> phenomenally confusing. [...]]


Well, whether user-defined operators are extensions to
the syntax or to the semantics is a matter of semantics ....
Use of a pre-processor is also *potentially* phenomenally
confusing, and arguably not a very good idea, but no-one is
seriously suggesting that C programmers should manage without
it.


User-defined and overloaded operators are *incredibly*
useful to certain classes of users. In mathematics, if we invent
some new class of object, and if two of those objects can
plausibly be added, then we naturally use the "+" symbol to
denote the addition: "A := B*C + D", not


matrixassign (A, matrixadd (matrixmult (B, C), D))


[or "graphassign ...", "vectorassign ...", "operatorassign ...",
"functionalassign ...", etc through dozens of classes]. Equally,
if I invent some new binary operator, then in a paper I'm likely
to use it infixed, not as a function name, and it's very nice if
related programs can do likewise.


There is no *huge* difficulty in compiling new operator
symbols and overladen old symbols, and there is no loss of
efficiency [as they are, in the end, just the same as the
function calls they replace]. They are part of the syntactic/
semantic sugar that used to make Algol 68 so much more pleasant
a language for intelligent users to write in than any of its
rivals or successors, and I, for one, miss them.
--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk
[I agree that overloading can be very useful, but if you start inventing
new syntax with unpredictable precedence, your programs become completely
unreadable. (I speak from experience here.) C++ for example lets you
overload with wild abandon, but the syntax is utterly unchangable. -John]

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