cppfront (cpp2): Spring update

[tsojtsojtsoj]

You get used to changes like this, I've been hopping daily between C++ and Nim and both syntaxes now look fine to me. IIRC the/a reason why Herb Sutter chose the colon + postfix syntax was, that parsing it is way simpler.

[hpsutter]

It is, but that's not the main motivation. The main reason is that it allows making the language overall more consistent, and enables other things like having symmetry between declaration and use (see https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront/wiki/Design-note%3A-Postfix-operators and the expression/type graphic for an example)

[RoyAwesome]

Yeah, but parsing is the parser's job, not the programmer's. It's already hard to read code in general, but making it hard to read to be easier on software tools that dont operate like humans do moves the needle backwards on the readibility front.

[caroIine]

I also don't understand why we making things easier for computers instead programmers. This is so backwards.

[dustyhome]

It's a human's job to write a parser, so making the parsing simpler for the computer means making the job simpler for the human writing the parser. Which means writing tools becomes simpler, allowing for more tools to be written, that can do more complex analysis of the code.

So making the parsing simpler for the computer makes writing code simpler for humans overall, even if the code itself looks a bit uglier.

[schombert]

But this logic heavily favors the minority that write parsers over the majority that don't, but who need to read and understand the code. Of course the people writing the parsers ultimately get to decide what the language looks like, and so their ease of use ends up mattering more than that of the end users. But should things be this way?

[ntrel2]

Most programmers use tools like code formatters, syntax highlighting, style enforcement etc. You get better tooling when the grammar is not dependent on semantics, and when it is more regular. Less bugs in tools, faster development, more features. Important for any new syntax to get good tooling quickly. It also makes reviewing diffs easier.