[e-lang] Proposal: deprecate "rcvr" in favor of "ref"

[David Hopwood]

Mark S. Miller wrote:
> Kevin Reid wrote:
> 
>>*Everything* is a ref, or a ref is something which behaves like its  
>>target, and in either case something called ':ref' can't be any  
>>different than ':any', and the same for ':ref[X]' and ':X'.
> 
> :ref is indeed the same as :any. However, :X means "a near reference to an X", 
> whereas :ref[X] (or whatever we decide to call it) means "a reference to an X".

This seems illogical to me (that the *less* specific guard has the extra qualifier).

I gather the main reason why it is this way around -- as opposed to ':near[X]'
meaning a near reference to X and ':X' meaning a reference to X -- is that the
requirement for a near reference is more common, and so the extra 6 characters
of 'near[]' would be too verbose.

Perhaps that objection would have less force if a single-character symbol were
used to indicate nearness, though. Are there any appropriate ASCII symbols free?

-- 
David Hopwood <david.nospam.hopwood at blueyonder.co.uk>