[sc34wg3] Comments on comments

Lars Marius Garshol larsga at garshol.priv.no
Tue Jan 22 13:26:54 EST 2008


I think we can summarize the debate so far as follows:
  - we need both single-line and multi-line comments,
  - there's a general preference for nestable multi-line comments.

Xuan is right that nestable comments mean CTM is no longer a regular  
language, and as far as I can recall this is the only thing that goes  
beyond that boundary. I don't think this really matters, though.

There's nothing like a consensus on *what* syntax to use though. We  
have the following proposals:

N0935:
   (: multiline comment :)
   # single-line comment

Kyoto proposal:
   !( multiline comment )!
   ! single-line comment

My proposal:
   #( multiline comment )# or (# multiline comment #)
   # single-line comment
   *and* change item identifier cryptic delimiter from '#' to '!'

Personally, I much favour my own proposal. The single-line comment  
syntax is very widely used, and has the added advantage of forcing us  
to use something else for item identifiers (my proposal there is '!',  
or even not supporting it, but I don't really care).

--Lars M.


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