Syntax customization & overloading

[chaiguy1337]

Hi Chuck, et al. It's great to see some independent work being done on languages. We can't leave everything up to the big guys.

My question is concerning what I call syntax customization, but it may have a more proper name.

One of the things I loved about C++ was coming up with libraries and tools that really extended the language in ways that were not originally intended, by use of especially operator overloading and macros. Sadly, when I moved to C# I was quite disappointed at the limitations put on operator overloading, as things like dot could not be overloaded.

I am just curious to what degree you envision Cobra to be customizable by end developers (i.e. without writing "language extensions" or some such).

Thanks,
Logan

[Charles]

I'm sorry to disappoint, but those are far down the list of future enhancements. Even ordinary operator overloading, which I definitely want, is a low priority. Given how important this is to you, I suggest you investigate EasyExtend and Boo. While Boo has macros, I believe that EasyExtend lets you actually alter the grammar (and I don't mean with new keywords/names, I mean adding new syntactical forms).

I think EasyExtend is interesting, but from my perspective, it's too experimental for Cobra at this time.

[chaiguy1337]

I understand you have priorities and certainly more important things to worry about at this point; I was just curious as to your plans. Thanks for the reply and I will keep an eye on the project.

Best of luck.

Logan