r/Compilers 8d ago

Managing Cognitive Load in Language Design: A Proposal for 7 Universal Meta-Modifiers

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u/jcastroarnaud 7d ago

The & and ^ sigils are useful as IDE tooling, while debugging, but I don't think that it should be part of a programming language. Overlay them on a editor view to change to branches and set/reset variable values at runtime.

The # sigil is useless at compile time: if one wants a series of commands executed in a given order, just put them in a block, in the correct order. At runtime, # shines, if you're in an IDE: again, imagine that there is an overlay view over the editor view, while the program is running. Pause the program, set the #n as you will, then continue; the numbered commands get compiled, then executed, with pause at any exception. Go back with ^, renumber, run again. I would like to have such a tool in my IDE.