Snip: Function With Conditional

Discuss this example here: https://github.com/orgs/contextual-contribs/teams/dream-team/discussions/1

code

(counts: 1-character per indent)

Javascript 105 chars

greetByName('Jack')

function greetByName(sName) {
    if (!sName) {
        console.log ('Hi');
        }
    else {
        console.log ('Hello, ' + sName);
        };
    };

contextual with boolean test and parameter-list

greetByName 'Jack'

greetByName sName
    !
        Say 'Hello ' sName
        Say 'Hi'

without parameter-list

greetByName
    !
        Say 'Hello ' sName
        Say 'Hi'

non-redundant action

greetByName sName
    ! Say
        'Hello ' sName
        'Hi'

without boolean test

greetByName sName
    Say 'Hello ' sName
    Say 'Hi'

without test, parameters, or redundant action

greetByName
    Say 
        'Hello ' sName
        'Hi'

current fave

without parameters or redundant action

36 chars

greetByName
    ! Say 
        'Hello ' sName
        'Hi'

explanation

Full contextual version

• greetByName 'Jack' No parens in the call. Totally superfluous.
• Eliminate function keyword. Everything's a function/object, and you don't have to say it. it's assumed. Just get to the name.
• No curlies or parens. Indentation shows blocks. A label immediately followed by indented lines is obviously a function. (assure no conflict with other kinds of blocks-- most are prolly contextually-obvious)
• Elimination of almost all punctuation. Only strings need to be indicated in this example.
• 1st line of a block receives first thing passed to it from it's parent. In this case, it's parent is the function signature. By default, a function signature will pass the incoming parameter to it's first child line (in this case, !).
• ! means "perform boolean test on whatever the parent line returned: either a string or a null.
• ! returns a boolean, therefor it's obvious this is a switch. We don't have to say it. No if needed. It's a boolean statement. It's obviously an if.
• All boolean tests execute true action first, false action second, by default. It's positional. (if JS parameters can be positional, then so can anything else be positional).
• No concatenation char needed. Say 'Hello ' sName is an obvious concatenation. Parser can assume that.
• No end sub or closing curlies. A blank line after an indented block means: "end of function".

Without parameters

• Just as JS can provide an unstated parameter list through the args keyword.
• Say 'Hello ' sName Contextually, parser can assume this is a passed parameter, because:
  • It's the first variable that appears in the function. (this may be the only rule needed)
  • We're using it in a sentence having not explicitly assigned anything to it. That makes no sense-- unless we assume it's the passed-parameter.
• Say 'Hello ' sName First time sName is used. Variables are declared and typed when first used. If memory optimization strategies require reserving the memory, let the transpiler deal with that. Stop making the programmer do the compiler's work.
• All parameters are private unless fully qualified. Therefor, sName is assumed be be a locally-scoped variable.

Without boolean test

• 1st line of fx receives first thing passed into the fx. If it's a loaded string, that's truthy. If it's a null, that's falsey. So we know this is a boolean test.
• Alternate rule: 2nd line of fx receives falsey from 1st line, which tried to print a null, and failed (cuz you can't print nulls). Therefor the 2nd line executes. This is similar to JS double-pipe behavior, where in this case our newline acts as the double-pipe.