What is your language feature wish list?

[tronderen]

Sure, I see the usefulness. But I see it as a library extension, not as a language extension.

[Niels Holst]

Oh, now I get it. You are right.

[BernardIE5317]

switch( x, y, z )
{
case 1, 2, 3:
break;
etc.
}

[Jeremy Falcon]

Cpichols wrote:

I do wish that JavaScript could handle associative arrays (not objects) in foreach loops where keys and values could be easily accessed for each item in the array

Most times people blame the language when it's really due to them not studying the language.

const data = [];

data['a'] = 200;
data['b'] = 300;

for (const datum in data) {
console.info(`${datum}: ${data[datum]}`);
}

Cpichols wrote:

and so that it could be done recursively

No language I've ever used does recursive traversing of objects automatically in a loop. Why would JavaScript be more difficult to understand?

Jeremy Falcon

[User 13269747]

C:* defer that works just like Go's defer

• Anonymous functions that don't mark the stack executable[1], so that defer is actually useful.
• Replace #define with lisp-like macros (now in Nim as well, I believe)
  Lots more, just don't have the time. [1] Current methods to do nested functions using compiler-specific extensions mark the entire stack as executable.

[tronderen]

CHILL has that. Or maybe I should say "had" - I don't know if anyone at all are using CHILL nowadays. We (i.e. Norway) used to have half of our land line phones handled by switches programmed in CHILL (ITT System 12 switches) but the land line phone system was closed down last newyear. Now only mobile phones and IP phones are left. Maybe CHILL is where you take your proposal from. You present a simplified view: CHILL offered both '*' for Don't Care and ELSE for All other values than those mentioned explicitly in other switch alternatives. CHILL has a few other properties that goes into my language feature wish list. It is a pity that it never caught on as a general language, it is really well designed. But noone worked for it - not even the creators of the language (The initial C is for CCITT, 'CCITT HIgh Level Language'. CCITT changed name to ITU-T many years ago.). They saw it as a good language for programming phone switches, and didn't care to consider the language for any other use.

[englebart]

Convert it to a function In(var1, param1,…) Or throw some functor at it like In(var1)(param1,… ) Is(var1).in(param1…) Could be a lot slower, though.

[englebart]

I am rusty in C/C++, but thought typedef would do that for you in C and C++. Need a cast to assign between the typedefs even if they are both native float.

[englebart]

Java really needs typedef. It could easily be restricted to final classes. Implement it via erasure like other Java generics. typedef String InvoiceId;

[Chad3F]

C: - A standard (and simple) way to declare a parameter (or local variable) as not-nullable. Clang supports such an extension, as does gcc (but in a less clean way). It would be better to have a portable tag to do it defined in the language standards. Honestly, this should have been done in back in C99, and would have probably stopped many bugs over the last decade or two. - Variable value bound declarations. So if a parameter is declared unsigned int, but really only has a meaningful range of 0-100, it could flag it during compile time that it is an error. Probably more useful to set reasonable bounds on items which could cause integer overflows (or static buffer overflows when still used due to legacy code).. For example:

typedef struct
{
int id;
char name[20];
} myrecord_t;

myrecord_t * alloc_list(__bound__(0, 10000000) unsigned int size)
{
/* size > 178956970 on 32-bit ===> overflow */
return malloc(size * sizeof(myrecord_t));
}

void safecaller(__bound__(1, 100000) unsigned int size)
{
/* Okay - [1-1000000] with-in [0, 10000000] bounds */
myrecord_t * list = alloc_list(size);

/* ... */
}

void badcaller(unsigned int size)
{
/* Compile ERROR - default (32-bit) unsigned int not with-in [0, 10000000] bounds */
myrecord_t * list = alloc_list(size);

/* ... */
}