On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 12:16:16PM +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:
Please explain how it's "spooky action at a distance" if it's a self-contained assignment statement?
"Spooky action at a distance" is your phrase, not mine, or Rob's. (I think David Mertz may have used it first, but I don't have to justify his choice of wording or agree with it.) I've told you why I think that partial assignments are problematic: a failed pattern match may nevertheless overwrite variables or create new ones. A *failed match* has the side-effect of changing and creating variables. I don't know if that counts as "action at a distance", spooky or otherwise, and frankly I don't care what label you put on it. It's okay if you don't agree with me, but if you want to persuade me (and others) to come around to your way of thinking, you might have more success if you are less touchy and give some concrete examples of why the potential benefits of this outweigh the negatives.
I know how much you love to argue, but really, this isn't productive.
Are we arguing or are we trying to reach consensus on the desirable behaviour and syntax? You're right that this discussion is not very productive at the moment. I haven't quite given up hope that we'll reach some sort of agreement, or at least understanding, about the desired functionality, but if you think there's no chance of that happening, then I guess this thread is going nowhere. -- Steve