[e-lang] Records (was: Hyper-printing)

[Mark S. Miller]

I wrote:
> Yes. In particular, all transparent record-like objects should use the 
> :HypertextWriter guard.

There seem to be more and more things that typical record-like objects should 
do in a stereotyped way:

* Name-based maker and corresponding uncall method.
* Call-patterns.
* Getters, of course,
* but also perhaps with-methods (for deriving a record like a given one, but
   with an alternate value for a given field).
* PassByCopy declaration.
* Pleasant __printOn (and now perhaps with a guard-name change).
* Perhaps its own trademark-checking Guard?

It seems some reusable abstraction is called for. Could this be something 
other than a syntactic abstraction? Is there some way we can capture a 
typical-record-making abstraction in E as it is?

I know this relates to previous discussions we've had on e-lang, but it seems 
pressing again.


-- 
Text by me above is hereby placed in the public domain

     Cheers,
     --MarkM