google / google/codeworld

Consider upstreaming deprecation of & from LSU fork

Open
#1,397 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
discussion
Dominant language
Haskell
Stars
1.3k
Forks
201
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

I noticed that @alphalambda removed the `&` operator from their standard library, in favor of `pictures` (renamed to `combined` in that fork). I've had similar thoughts, and I wonder if I ought to do the same thing (slowly, with a VERY long deprecation cycle) in my own copy.

I think the issue is that students find `&` to be too much like English, and not enough like a mathematical operator. That leads them to have incorrect expectations that it can be used in all places where they want multiple things. I've seen students try to use `&` to separate animations, items in a list, and so on.

I definitely haven't decided to do this. I think I'll wait to discuss with @alphalambda after it's been used there for a while. It would be a shame to do such a disruptive deprecation, only to learn that it doesn't help! Just creating the issue to capture discussion and track the decision-making.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.