Re: GDL Notice: Arithmetic Operators / Quasi-Formulae

[Juergen Ruehle <j dot ruehle at bmiag dot de>]

Jim Kingdon writes:
 > > These have now been added and work fine. Here is a frivolous example:
 > > (define VILLAGE_STORAGE_MULT (+ (- 5)))         ; evaluates to 5
 > >    ; because 5 - 1 = 4, and then 4 + 1 = 5
 > 
 > Hmm.  I didn't notice this the first time through, but this doesn't
 > read so well.  (- 5) looks like -5.
 > 
 > I suppose
 > 
 > (++ 5)    =>    6
 > 
 > might be better, although of course it isn't like the C ++ because it
 > just returns the incremented value, rather than assigning.
 > 
 > There's also
 > 
 > (inc 5)
 > 
 > Or of course going back to (+ 5 1) if all of these choices seem
 > problematic.

Actually I would prefer the (Common) LISP version:

  (1+ 5) => 6
  (1- 5) => 6

while

  (+ 5) => 5
  (- 5) => -5

This avoids overloading of + and -, but that's just IMO.