World: r3wp

I know many of you are very technical and scientific, but this is 
a kind of detail, which is IMHO not in REBOL's mindset and don't 
mind a little bit of extra "precision" or "correctness".  but REBOL 
is not about being correct and strict... its about being simple and 
productive... so even if you are probably correct in your analysis... 
I do think its not a simple detail to understand for the vast majority 
of REBOLers.


The interpreter should addapt to use, not the opposite.  INC a means 
increment a, who cares what this means within the interpreter, words 
already are pointers internally, so its not such a big deal to implement 
anyways AFAICT.  in the end, we will be typing an extra ' all the 
time and really will be adding complexity elsewhere in the code, 
cause we have to "remember what a means, somewhere"


or end up doing a: INC a  which is sort of pointless.  Also, its 
an op, not a function.  just like + - = ... its not supposed to follow 
a function's tought pattern.

I must agree. Most of the cases I would use (inc a) is just faster 
replacement for (a: a + 1) which is exactly what is (a++) in other 
languages. And I'm missing (a+=5) as well.

would you mind?
 += a 5 (or rather add a 5)

cause then this could open door to a set of scalar ops which are 
not within rebol.  all following the same syntax.

but I understand, that if would be inconsistent with other Rebol 
actions like [abs negate ...]

but these are not ops.  they are functions.

maybe its time REBOL had a better support for ops.

I really don't know if there is any advantage, that (add a 5) doesn't 
change the value of a. But I'm not expert so will let the decision 
on someone else.

I'm sure I never used (a: add a 1)

exactly.  so current add is just useless luggage.

and using (a: add a 1) is slower than (a: a + 1) so I really would 
like to change it.

the only advantage is that I can write 10 * add a 1 instead of 10 
* (a + 1) - but as it's slower, why I should do it?

Maxim: "geomol and others...  INC with lit-words is seriously flawed 
in actual use ... a: inc a..." If I understood you well, you are 
saying, that you don't like an expression of the type: inc 'a, since 
the 'a looks unnatural to you. How about inc pick [foo bar] 1 then?

...or inc first [foo] ?

what is:
inc pick [foo bar] 1

or rather, how often/when is this going to be used?

I have nothing against lit-words. But maybe would like more inc a 
to increment a and change the value of a as well.

what would be faster:
inc some/object/some/value
or
some/object/some/value: inc some/object/some/value
?

inc (evaluate_something) : if you cannot use it, then the language's 
orthogonality is "impaired" (the language is referentially nontransparent, 
there are places, where you cannot put/evaluate an an expression

in this case:

inc pick [foo bar] 1


there is nothing stopping inc from changing foo or bar also just 
like you?

do not understand your question...

I just ask why  inc A  would behave differently than inc 'A

obviously, if A contains something else than a scalar, an error is 
raised.

because it is exactly the same case as in:

a: 1
equal? a 1 ; == true


, where we don't want to compare the variable with one, but the result 
of the expression (a), which is one

if we had: equal?*: func ['value1 'value2] [equal? :value1 :value2], 
then such a function would be totally useless

...since 
>> equal?* a 1
== false

yes... but equal is a function... not an op ;-)

what? equal? is a prefix version of the = op

to be understood: I am not against side effects (changing the value 
of a variable), I am against nontransparency "impairing" the language

Maxim: I guess, that your anti lit-word contribution does not take 
this into account, does it?

    type? 'a ; == word!

well type? evaluates 'a right?  which really is a word... Am I right?

I'm not agains lit-word . But if I understand Maxim, he is scared, 
that in most cases we would use  inc 'a   because that's what at 
least the way I would used it - to change value of a

and to be correct, I would need to for example to change it in object: 
   inc some/object/a

and inc 'a complicates other things ...

I really don't like, that now I have to write  some/object/a: some/object/a 
+ 1

exactly what Oldes just illustrates

but I understand what Ladislav means by inc 'a  in evaluating 'a 
 means increment the word which 'a points to.

remove the inc 'a thing. Why would we need to check for lit words? 
it complicates things.

Yes, I understand it as well. So I was asking if we can than have 
 inc some/object/'a  (which I found quite cryptic)

whereas  inc a  means increment the content which is stored in a. 
 which could be a word, in which case, it will change the content 
of that word directly.

Maxim: "...I understand what Ladislav means by inc 'a  in evaluating 
'a  means increment the word which 'a points to" - actually not, 
I see it differently. INC 'a means, that before the INC obtains the 
argument value, an expression is evaluated and its value supplied 
as an argument. *if* you disallow that, then you disallow expression 
evaluation

and the funny thing is, that the lit-arguments don't disallow evaluation 
of all expressions, since the expressions of the :a type are evaluated!

I give up... I'm lost in theory :-)

just give me something better than:  some/object/some/value: some/object/some/value 
+ 1

lost in theory? It is simple. INC is supposed to be a function. It 
either allows evaluation expression using normal argument, or it 
disallows expression evaluation using lit-argument.

what I say is bad is to disallow expression evaluation, since REBOL 
is an expression - based language, as you may recall

Ok, that I understand.

that still may mean you may be able to write: inc 'a/b

(but don't forget about complications, when A is a function!)

There might be options to solve the path situation:
inc some/object/some/'value
inc some/object/some/('value)
or maybe
inc '(some/object/some/value)
Just suggestions.

If you think, "inc a" should change a, then think about these, that 
we have today:
negate a
- a ; unary minus
abs a

Also many math functions, like:
exp a
log-e a
etc.

Why don't all those change a?

I guess it is a rhetorical question, but allow me to answer: because 
we need NEGATE, EXP, etc. to be able to process a result of a REBOL 
expression

:-)