andrenth

andrenth OP

Hello

I’ve done some Erlang a long time ago and now I’m returning to the platform via Elixir. One the few things syntax-wise that I feel is sub-optimal is how you call Erlang functions, i.e., :module.function(...). It just looks a bit odd to me, although I do understand why it is this way.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use the same transformation done in keyword lists ([{:foo => 1}] being the same as [foo: 1]) and call module:function(...) instead, just like in Erlang? :slight_smile:

First 8 of 8 Posts Switch mode

Qqwy

Qqwy

TypeCheck Core Team

I have an alternative for you:

alias :module, as: Module

Module.function(...)
yurko

yurko

Keyword lists are lists of tuples, so it’s [{:foo, 1}], [foo: 1] == [{:foo, 1}]. A bit confusing yeah, so my vote is leave it be and add no sugar, it’s not healthy :smiley:

andrenth

andrenth OP

Yeah, I should have said “inspired by” and not “the same” transformation done for keyword lists.

andrenth

andrenth OP

I have an alternative for you:

It would actually be pretty nice if all Erlang functions came wrapped in an Erl module or something.

voughtdq

voughtdq

Erlang does have quoting:

iex(53)> :merl.quote("dothing(x) -> x.")       
{:function, 1, :dothing, 1,
 [{:clause, 1, [{:atom, 1, :x}], [], [{:atom, 1, :x}]}]}

I’m not sure what the Elixir parser would do with this AST though.

hauleth

hauleth

Why and how would you do that in case of non-core modules? Like poolboy?

andrenth

andrenth OP

Well in that case you wouldn’t, of course, unless there’s something that adds the alias mentioned by @Qqwy automatically.

I still think being able to call poolboy:foo(...) instead of :poolboy.foo(...) would make erlang calls feel less second-class.

It’s not like this is super important, it’s just an idea I had that I thought would be neat.

hauleth

hauleth

The point is that the current syntax is in par with the whole rest of the language, as Foo.bar() is the same as :'Elixir.Foo'.bar() (with exception for the aliases). So adding new call syntax would mean that Foo:bar() also would became valid call. While this could simplify some things (it would provide difference between function call and map access) I think it would be too confusing, especially as foo. bar() is valid syntax and foo: bar() will not be.

— All posts loaded —

Where Next? Top

Trending in Discussions Top

AstonJ
As the title says, please share what you’ve been up to with Elixir. Whether that’s been learning it, looking into it, making stuff with i...
2977 91561 914
New
byu
@chrismccord : I just saw the Extract AGENTS.md from Phoenix.new into phx.new generator commit to the phoenix project. My initial shotgu...
New
arcanemachine
I was working on an Ecto migration and I needed a timestamp. So, for the nth time, I looked up the different data types for timestamps, a...
New
AstonJ
Just a general thread to post chat/news/info relating to AI/ML stuff that may be relevant for Nx now or in the future. Got anything to sh...
New
type1fool
I just stumbled on a newly redesigned elixir-lang.org. :tada: It looks like @Software_Mansion did the work, and I think it is generally a...
New
juhalehtonen
There has been a thread to discuss the Stack Overflow Developer Survey on this forum every year since 2018, so here’s yet another one for...
New
alexslade
Fly’s CEO posted this recently - Turn And Face The Strange · The Fly Blog It says that Fly is going all-in on sprites, which is a worry ...
New

Other Trending Topics Top

JesseHerrick
Hey, I’m Jesse and I’m the main contributor behind Dexter, a full-featured, lightning-fast Elixir LSP optimized for large codebases. It s...
New
jimsynz
Beam Bots (or just BB for short) is a framework for building fault-tolerant robotics applications in Elixir using familiar OTP patterns. ...
New
Damirados
Hello everyone. After busy few months I am happy to announce v0.1.0 of Emerge & Solve. They are GUI (Emerge) and State management (S...
New
netoum
Corex is an accessible, unstyled UI component library for Phoenix that integrates Zag.js state machines using Vanilla JavaScript and Live...
New
ausimian
Emily is an Elixir library that runs Nx computations on Apple’s MLX. Install it as the default Nx backend and Nx, defn, Axon, Nx.Serving,...
New
mudasobwa
While I am working on the Language Agnostic Code Audit SaaS, which uses MetaAST (spoiler: I am expecting it to be in a good shape for ann...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement