Alternative syntax for globals

Right now we declare globals using the type e.g. I32.global(name: 42) or F32.global(blah: 1.5)

What if instead we allowed module attributes to be the globals? This would let normal Elixir code read their values too, as we’d keep the attribute definitions. It would also match the current @some_global syntax to read a global in functions.

It could look like:

export_global :mutable do
  @some_int32 42
  @xn 0.96422
  @yn 1.00000
  @zn 0.82521
  @k :math.pow(29, 3) / :math.pow(3, 3)
  @e :math.pow(6, 3) / :math.pow(29, 3)
end

You can see that whether it is an integer or float is detected by from its Erlang type (is_integer(42) vs is_float(42.0))

In a future world with 64-bit numbers, they would be enabled using a parameter export_global :mutable, 64 do or a name like export_global64 :mutable do

Another alternative is Global.expose_attributes([:xn, :yn, :zn, :k, :e])

RoyalIcing / Orb

Alternative syntax for globals #3