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Postings from December 2019
I wrote: >usage you're proposing has nothing at all to do with typeglobs, so the >association with the glob sigil is misleading. It also might interfere >a bit with any future work to process actual typeglobs in signatures. Thinking about it more, I find the case compelling to avoid using any sigil character as a prefix meaning anything other than the sigil. But I agree with a prefix character for this aliasing use being superior to a postfix (though not for your reason). I suggest that "=" would be a better prefix character, mnemonically suggesting a stronger-than-usual equality between the argument and the parameter variable. In assigning that character I'm assuming that "=" wouldn't be used for the pair-constructor shorthand (because of the POD clash) and therefore also wouldn't be used for named-parameter shorthand in signatures. However, making it possible to have "=" at the start of a signature item invokes a milder version of the POD clash that I described in respect of pair shorthand. It's milder because this isn't letting an actual expression begin with "=", and therefore isn't letting a *statement* begin with "=". If "=" is somehow ruled out for this purpose, there are many options of weaker mnemonic value that are about as good as each other. "+" is probably my second favourite. -zefram