[J3] [EXTERNAL] Re: Syntax of conditional expressions

[Van Snyder]

On Tue, 2021-06-29 at 19:15 +0000, Clune, Thomas L. (GSFC-6101) via J3
wrote:
> this might be a case where having 2 expressions is the lesser evil
> than losing the feature over a more trivial issue of preferences.

During my decades if using Fortran and corresponding with the
committee, I've seen far too many useful features disappear down the
memory hole because of disagreements over syntax.

I haven't written a compiler for anything as large as Fortran, but in
all the smaller projects, if I had two different syntaxes for some
functionality, it would add a production or two to the grammar. They
would generate the same abstract syntax trees. From then on, nothing
would be different. The increase in burden would not be anywhere near
doubled.

I don't know how vendors build their processors, but if they produce an
abstract syntax tree, independently of how parsing is done, the
subsequent phases should be unaware f what syntax produced the tree.

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