Linked by Kaj-de-Vos on Thu 20th Dec 2012 00:22 UTC
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There are many flaws in REBOL, but this is not one of them. We're fixing many of the other flaws in Red, but we're pleased with the default expression precedence as it is.
As I noted before, REBOL makes it easy to implement your own expression evaluator with different precedence when you want.




Member since:
2012-12-22
So you never learned any of the mnemonics for operator precedence? Or indeed had to learn in in school, or where it is still very much needed in real life?
If you start with the assumption that unary operators come first, and comparison and logical operators come at the end, then the old saw of My Dear Aunt Sally (multiplication, division, addition, subtraction) holds.
Or like how people do with real math, or have to do in REBOL to make sure the intent is clear?
I am not impresses with this argument. I have met many die hard proponents of Smalltalk, APL, Lisp, and Forth — and with the exception of Forth — none of them have actually claimed that the precedence in their language was somehow better. Instead they would say something like "well the operator precedence is a bit funky, but that is a consequence of how the language works, you will get used to it"
I will end as a general thought: It's ok to admit the flaws of something you love. It isn't somehow admitting defeat. Nothing that is useable in the real world is perfect. Nor in promoting your thing, do you need to talk down something else.