[racket-dev] else clauses: possible change to match?

[shuffled]

Yesterday, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> 
> Meanwhile, it might be worth adding support for `#:else' to `cond',
> `case', and `match'. That would be backward compatible, and we could
> see whether we like it enough to do things that way in `racket2'.

1. Doesn't that make an argument against using traditional keywords?
   Perhaps it's a point for having more symbolic comparisons for
   keywords?  (I'm not objecting to keywords -- just trying to figure
   out the implications of such a move.)  IOW, if all such things
   switched to #:keywords, what would be a good use case for
   identifiers?

2. Can we also think of a better keyword syntax in racket2 if it's
   going to be used more?  IIRC, the main arguments against `foo:' or
   `:foo' were existing code, but existing code will need to be
   modified...

3. And a side-comment: I hope that there will be something better
   than actual `racket2' used in code...  Maybe rename the current one
   to `racket1' and possibly have code in packages use that unless
   it's declared new somehow?


(The following is all filed under a non-important comment.)

> Well, Ian provided an example from real code, right? Ian is willing
> to change his code, but the code sounds real.
> 
> There's also the use in `unparse-pattern' in Redex. Maybe that's the
> troublesome one that Robby has in mind changing (or he would be
> happy to change it, obviously), but it's another real example.

IIUC, Ian said that he doesn't actually use that code, and the redex
use is exactly what would get unbroken (I think, I didn't look at the
code).  I'm just saying that there are cases where it's worth breaking
strict compatibility if it fixes more code than it breaks -- having (+
1 2) => 4 is an exaggerated case of this, and relying on `else' being
bound seems like it's closer to that end.  Especially given that
(match x ... [else ... else ...]) would usually be a quick unbound
identifier error.

(And BTW, I think that `match' is also an exceptional example in how
this will go:

  (let ([else 1]) (match x [else ...]))

which is a little more confusing than the same with `cond'.)

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!