Allow global execution or not?

[haasn]

Should we allow top-level expressions other than >implying or should we restrict it to those? The practical effect of this is, do we force everybody to create an OP function, or do we allow direct code execution?

The pros and cons of both:

Allow only top level implications, force OP functions:

Pros:

• Functions can be declared in any order, the OP function can be at the top and helper functions at the bottom
• The user can name the args variable to whatever he wants

Cons:

• The user is always required to define an OP function, which is generally considered bad for interpreted languages

Allow top level execution

Pros:

• No declaration overhead needed, simple scripts will be simple

Cons:

• Functions must be defined before they are used, so all code must effectively be at the bottom of the file

[yate]

i'm for top level, for the pro listed (and easier to parse maybe?)

[graydude]

This is quite a big thing. The real issue here is how the language is going to work; is it going to be compiled or interpreted?

[haasn]

My implementation is definitely going to be interpreted, due to the runtime variable name resolution rules I've described. Of course, it could be compiled together with a very slow runtime (where every variable reference would perform a runtime call to resolve it)

[graydude]

If we're going to go interpreted, I think we should allow global execution.

[haasn]

It's probably the best solution. To solve the “functions need to be defined before they can be used” thing, a user could throw all of his functions into separate files and include them all at the top of the main file.

(We'd need a nice meme-based syntax for inclusion as well)

[graydude]

How about

install functions.gs

We could have header files called gentoo!

I think we should also take a look at the name of functions. Maybe we can call them Threads or something. But I'll make another issue out of this some time.

[haasn]

install sounds good. “install gentoo” should be reserved for something silly though, I don't know what yet.

I was thinking threads should be reserved for actual threads, eg. concurrency features that we may wish to implement later on.

Y'know, like /thread could mean “terminate the current thread” and all that. Maybe something else for functions, like “posts”?

[graydude]

/thread sounds cool.
We could also use an unboxing thread for including, but install sounds better to me.

If we use posts for it, you know we should have a captcha for creating a new function :)

[haasn]

Nah, but >captcha should be a built-in function which presents a captcha to the user (as popup if graphical environment is found, otherwise as ASCII art), and returns a bool depending on whether or not the user entered it correctly

[haasn]

I'm closing this issue since it looks like we'll be keeping global execution.