[bitc-dev] Scoping vs. verbosity

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

I was discussing the following extension to current syntax with Swaroop:

 (forall ((Constraint 'a))
   def-1
   ...
   def-n)

The intuition here is that *if* we find ourselves rewriting constraints
a lot then it might be pleasant (from a textual perspective) to gather
all related definitions under a common form.

The *problem* with this is that the actual scope of the FORALL is
per-definition. That is, the above is syntactic sugar for:

 (forall ((Constraint 'a))
   def-1)
   ...
 (forall ((Constraint 'a))
   def-n)

I would like to get reaction on this. Would people find this sort of
syntactic sugar confusing or helpful?

It's relevant because I'm currently working out the block structured
BitC syntax, and this construct is much more natural in that syntax.

shap