[Millscript-developer] MillScript 10

[Kevin R. <mo...@us...>]

Hi,

I've been a bit lax using the developer mailing list, so I'm gonna forward 
bits of some emails discussing development for MillScript 10. So here goes:

Version 10 is progressing slowly but surely. The support for classes is pretty 
good at the moment, but it's important not to rush out new features without 
thinking through the consequences.

The main sticking point for classes are constructors and how they should be 
implemented. Specifically there is no "new" operator for constructing an 
instance of a class, you call a constructor like any other normal procedure, 
except a constructor is guaranteed to return one result - an instance of the 
relevant class.

To get constructors working completely requires that you are able to apply a 
class like any other procedure. This is a concept referred to as an apply 
action, i.e. the action taken when an object is applied. I'm slightly 
concerned about the approach and wondering if this is really as simple
as it seems, i.e. in a apply expression you check the type of the object
being applied and branch out to the relevant apply-action? (and trying to do
as much as possible at compile-time rather than run-time)

I've also been giving the code a thorough work over, documenting almost 
Also on a minor point, I've been going through the code with an interesting
program called FindBugs(http://findbugs.sf.net/) It pointed out some things
to do with anonymous inner classes which lead me to MillScripts arithmetic
code - I was wondering if the arithmetic operators should be implemented as
proper functions, rather than as other syntax, or if it doesn't really make
any difference?

--
Kevin