Fae 0.0.1-1bb34fb-bunded
Built on November the 2nd 2024
Improvements
- Replaced the use of double-colon
::with a period.as module path separator or enum variant specification in type position.
Detailed Discussion
This release completely replaces the use of :: in Fae code with the period . and cleans up a bunch of syntactic inconsistencies along the way. The compiler now reasons about symbol, variant, field, and method lookup entirely differently and many previously un-parsable situations are now entirely valid.
Most in-scope symbols already existed within a unified namespace so removing the concept of a "module path" vs a "dot access path" and unifying the two is very natural.
Importing a symbol
// Old
import fae::collections::list::List
// New
import fae.collections.list.List
Calling a non-imported symbol
// Old
fae::io::terminal::clear()
// New
fae.io.terminal.clear()
Previously an enum variant was initialized with a dot Enum.Variant but in type parsing had to be referred to via a double colon Enum::Variant to avoid syntactic ambiguity. This is now resolved and uses a dot everywhere.
Dot inferring an enum variant based on context previously allowed calling instance methods but not static methods; this has been resolved with this overhaul.
// Old
function(Enum::Variant.static_method())
// New
function(.Variant.static_method())
A minor change resulting from this overhaul is that type arguments to enum variant initialization is now placed on the enum name rather than the variant name. This was not a goal of the refactor but is logically consistent with how the compiler reasons about variants and as such is acceptable.
// Old
let _ = Enum.Variant<i32> { field: 42 }
// New
let _ = Enum<i32>.Variant { field: 42 }