9fans archive / 1996 / 07 / 51 /    prev next

From: Roger Peppe rog@ohm...
Subject: limbo
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 96 16:39:35 +0100

after browsing the limbo documents, i've got a few questions.
i hope nobody objects to these being raised on the 9fans list.

is there a security reason why limbo doesn't support any sort of
polymorphism at all, even unions ?

it seems slightly surprising, as Alef seemed to provide quite a
nice form of polymorphism which looked as if it might adapt quite
well to a language such as limbo; it could also provide a nice
mechanism for dealing with variable argument lists.

also, what's the reason for '.' binding tighter than '->' ?
m->(Module->Type).function() seems rather contrived; the second
reference to the Module type is surely unnecessary because Type
has always got to be declared at the top level within m, so
m->Type.function() is unambiguous (and seems more intuitive, to me
at least)

flames to me only, not to the list, please.

  cheers,
    rog.