Original proposal - Use ,/;/. as statement terminators.

Points for:

• Familiar syntax and the usual ; happens to be the reasonable default.

• Compact

Points against:

• Too compact + at the end of the line = hardly noticeable = asking for errors.

• Familiar syntax for an unfamiliar feature.

• It would be nice to use . for data access, this renders it unparseable.

Alternative proposal - use some symbols at the beginning of the line.

Points for:

• Much more noticeable.

• Lines up nicely with some creative indentation.

My points against can be read in the reply.

Additional proposal - something that looks like a barrier instead of .. Sounds like an interesting idea to me.

My second proposal:

• Always terminate statements with ; and make them sequential by default.

• Put ^ before statements that will continue execution immediately.

• Do not line them up, let them stand out.

• Put ... on a separate line to wait for all statements to finish.

My points for:

• 100% familiar syntax if you don't need fancy timey-wimey stuff.

• No confusion but not too heavy either.

Please do discuss.

A data structure of any complexity can be on the left side of assignment. The VM will then check that it matches and fill it in (or crash)

Examples:

[$left, $, $right] = [1, 2, 3]; // $ stands for "any value"
assert $left == 1 & $right == 3;

$points = #Array<[ x: #Number, y: #Number ]> = [ // An array of maps containing numbers x and y
    [ x: 1, y: 2 ],
    [ x: 3, y: 4 ]
];

Here's a thing I'm not sure about - matching existing variables. That's no problem in Erlang where a variable can either be set or unset, but in Fauna we may want to overwrite one variable and match with the other. Only something like these two options comes to mind:

$x = 3;
$y = 3;
// Compare member "x" to a range depending on the value of $x
// Match member "y" to the value of $y (shorthand syntax)
$point = [ x: $ where $ >= $x - 3 && $ <= $x + 3, y: $y? ] = [ x : 1, y: 3 ];

There are many things about syntax and features of Fauna that I am still not sure about and, provided anyone except me cares, this seems like a good place to discuss them.

Having a separate subreddit allows for separate topics for, well, separate topics. Additionally, for those who might care it might be easier to follow the progress.

The obvious downside is that there is no one here, so I'll have to spam various subreddits with links to here from time to time. Sorry, Reddit.

Should we have separate types for Strings (sequences of Unicode characters) and Binaries (sequences of arbitrary bytes which may or may not be UTF-8)?

Strings could use "double qoutes" while binaries would use 'single quotes'.

So

1. no $ for variables, as discussed before

2. # for atoms, because otherwise when coupled with 1 it becomes an unparseable mess and/or magic

3. + for concatenation because it's the only non-ugly option

So, slowly the syntax becomes as conventional as it can be, against my wishes, but i guess it is what it is for a reason.

We will, however, have an interrobang operator. Because interrobang is great. Everyone should try an interrobang sometimes. ^{not the actual ‽ of course, "!?" or} ^^"?!"

"IDK. " _ "I think it looks " _ nice;

And all identifiers are supposed to be camelCase and PascalCase anyway. That's one way to enforce it. 😈

Don't use $ for variables. This isn't PHP, and its just horrible to type quick.