budd@arizona.UUCP (tim budd) (10/24/84)
<this is not a line of text> before i get any more flam mail, let me expand upon my earlier note on 3.14159 a b ; (c d) i thought I had made this clear in my note, but from the volume of mail received i guess i was wrong. yes, this is syntactically incorrect; i know this is syntactically incorrect, i knew this was syntactically incorrect when i wrote it. I am not advocating this syntax (which i think is awful). The actions i was attempting to describe is as follows: 1. send the message a to 3.14159, then the message b to that result. 2. send the message c to the result of 1, THEN the message d to that result. throw away this value. 3. FINALLY (and here is the kicker) yield, as the result of the entire expression, the result of 1. this is, of course, different from the current interpretation of 3.14159 a b ; c d which is 1. send the message a to 3.14159, then the message b to that result. 2. send the message c to the result of 1, and throw away the result. 3. send the message d to the result of 1, and yield, as the result of the entire expression, this result. The point of my earlier note was that restricting continuations to a single message seems unnecessary, since if we adopt this new interpretation the current interpretation is easy of obtain (use parentheses) but given the current interpretation obtaining my new interpretation is difficult. NOW - if everybody understands the situation - can somebody explain to me why xerox chose the interpretation they did?