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how useful are collecting lists? David Vanderson (12 Mar 2013 04:32 UTC)
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Re: how useful are collecting lists? David Vanderson (13 Mar 2013 01:59 UTC)
Re: how useful are collecting lists? David A. Wheeler (13 Mar 2013 02:51 UTC)
Re: how useful are collecting lists? Alan Manuel Gloria (13 Mar 2013 06:54 UTC)
Re: how useful are collecting lists? David A. Wheeler (13 Mar 2013 23:36 UTC)
Re: how useful are collecting lists? Alan Manuel Gloria (14 Mar 2013 00:48 UTC)
Re: how useful are collecting lists? David A. Wheeler (13 Mar 2013 23:57 UTC)
Re: how useful are collecting lists? David Vanderson (14 Mar 2013 01:15 UTC)

Re: how useful are collecting lists? David A. Wheeler 13 Mar 2013 23:57 UTC

Alan Manuel Gloria:

> Personally, even in my s-expressions era I started to dislike
> deeply-nested definitions... I now know that such deep
> defines are a *pain* to debug.

True, but sometimes you really do need them, particularly for
complex library modules and certain kinds of complex data structures.

I think using a collecting list after a "." will be rare,
but when you need it, there's just no substitute.  It can turn
a deeply indented expression that forbids blank lines into
a simpler format (and where blank lines end at a controlled point).
And as you noted, they follow from the definition
of <*...*>, so it would a surprise to the user if they are NOT allowed.

--- David A. Wheeler