Exploring the Concept of Inverse Parentheses in Programming Language Design
By
mighty-fine
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Summary
The article explores the concept of 'inverse parentheses' in programming languages - the idea of using parentheses to ungroup operands rather than group them. It discusses how grouping with parentheses is straightforward to implement in language grammars, but anti-grouping (ungrouping) presents more complex parsing challenges. The author examines the theoretical implications and technical difficulties of implementing such a feature in programming languages.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledHave you ever noticed that lots of programming languages let you use parentheses to group operands, but none use them to ungroup them?
Grouping with parentheses is relatively easy to add to a language grammar.
Anti-grouping isn't quite as straightforward. Our parser can't follow the structure of the parentheses
Well let's pretend this is a normal thing to be thinking about, and see what we can do about it.
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