Re: Prefix, not postfix

["Kjetil S. Matheussen" <k.s.matheussen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"Alex Shinn":

> On 4/13/06, Philippe Meunier <meunier@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Marc Feeley <feeley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >1) I prefer prefix syntax, e.g.   (button :text "OK" :action quit)
> > >2) I prefer suffix syntax, e.g.   (button text: "OK" action: quit)
> > >3) I don't care
>
> 2.
>
> As an example of a procedure that looks especially nice with suffix
> syntax, here is SEND-MAIL from the Hato mail server:


Okay, this post is a bit lame since the last message in this thread was
posted over a year ago, and I only read it because of the finalization 
announcement on comp.lang.scheme. However, I want to express my opinion on 
this matter anyway, since a couple of points didn't seem to be mentioned 
explicitly in the discussion.


Alex' example with suffix:

  (send-mail From:    "Dr. Watson <guest@xxxxxxxxxxxx>"
             To:      "Sherlock Homes <not-really@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
             Subject: "First Report"
             Charset: "ISO-8859-1"
             Body:    "Moor is gloomy. Heard strange noise, attached."
             Attachments: '((File: "howl.ogg")))



Alex' example with prefix:

  (send-mail :From    "Dr. Watson <guest@xxxxxxxxxxxx>"
             :To      "Sherlock Homes <not-really@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
             :Subject "First Report"
             :Charset "ISO-8859-1"
             :Body    "Moor is gloomy. Heard strange noise, attached."
             :Attachments '((File: "howl.ogg")))




I think prefix is better, for the following two reasons:

1. Its faster to spot the colon when its at the start of a word: "Aha!
   the first character is a colon, the characters following the colon
   constructs a keyword."

2. Vertical alignment. "send-mail"'s arguments consists of a bunch of
   keywords+argument pairs, where the first coloumn is keywords and the
   second is arguments. This is easier to spot with prefix because all the
   colons are vertical aligned.

IMHO! :-)