Re: GDP: identifiers = ick

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

Graham Percival escreveu:
> Are there sound technical reasons why we call identifiers "identifiers"?
>  I haven't come across the term anywhere else; how objectionable would
> it be if we called them "macros" instead?

Macros are usually reserved for a substitution mechanism where the
result of the substitution is then interpreted using the usual
lex/parse/eval mechanisms of a language.  That's not the case here,
and naming it macro's could lead people to believe that they can do stuff
like

  dur = 4
  pit = c'

  \pit\dur

and get something sensible.

Identifier isn't a good term either, that is the term for the lexical
function ("an identifier a sequence of letters").

Perhaps we should just 'variable'

-- 

Han-Wen Nienhuys - address@hidden - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen