Syntax for tuples

Steven D. Majewski (sdm7g@aemsun.med.Virginia.EDU)
Sat, 28 Dec 91 14:03:14 EST

I recall reading in *some* language description *somewhere* ( perhaps
it was ML ? )
that ( in that language ) the comma operator was considered the tuple
constructor, and parentheses were only for grouping and forcing it to
be evaluated properly.

Python *almost* behaves like this !
The exception being that the emply tuple is written:
empty = ()
rather than:
empty = ,

( But if that *was* ML I was recalling, it uses '()' as the empty tuple or
UNIT value. )

( I don't really know ML, but I'm reading (inspired by some of these discussions)
David A. Watt's "Programming Language Concepts and Paradigms" which is
an excellent "sequal" to Bob Tennent's "Programming Language Principles"
and which ( Wat's book ) uses ML as one of the example languages. )

I *DO* appreciate the argument passing changes - as previously noted, the
code to handle the exceptions required for thezero/one/many functions
were an anoyance ( and I had more trouble getting it right for object
methods ! )

- Steve Majewski