Many archaic programming languages have redundant operators. For example < and >, and + and - are clearly just opposites of each other. This suggests the possibility of generalising the concept, into an operator-inversion operator.
But we can go even further. I propose that the prefix negation operator ; should be fully generalised, to invert any language construct, not just values. This is to negation approximately as the proposed ~ operator (https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/129) is to approximation.
For example:
;> is equivalent to <
;const is equivalent to var
var var a ;= b! is equivalent to assigning anything other than b to a.
a ;= b is equivalent to ;(a = b)
f;(x) is equivalent to x(f)
;! does not end the line
;// does not start a comment
;{ print(42) } is a comment
;undefined is defined
;function is defined to not function (guaranteed incorrect behaviour)
TodePond
commented
1 month ago
Many archaic programming languages have redundant operators. For example
<and>, and+and-are clearly just opposites of each other. This suggests the possibility of generalising the concept, into an operator-inversion operator.But we can go even further. I propose that the prefix negation operator
;should be fully generalised, to invert any language construct, not just values. This is to negation approximately as the proposed~operator (https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/129) is to approximation.For example:
;>is equivalent to<;constis equivalent tovarvar var a ;= b!is equivalent to assigning anything other thanbtoa.a ;= bis equivalent to;(a = b)f;(x)is equivalent tox(f);!does not end the line;//does not start a comment;{ print(42) }is a comment;undefinedis defined;functionis defined to not function (guaranteed incorrect behaviour);noopdoes something (guaranteed behaviour)This could also fix existing issues for missing operators that are the inverse of other operators (
!=https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/573,create/restorehttps://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/181 https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/185,comefromhttps://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/99#issuecomment-1579314768,nowaithttps://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/141,;"https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/issues/330#issuecomment-1686627568).This also has exciting implications for operator overloading (https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd/pull/133).