(. rnd nextInt) vs (.nextInt rnd)

[James Keats]

Hi all. I'm struggling to see the point of this (from Pragmatic's
Programming Clojure):

Java => rnd.nextInt()
Clojure => (. rnd nextInt)
sugared => (.nextInt rnd)


What's the point of the sugared version? It's not any less to type.
It's also incomprehensible to me how it came about. In the middle one
it's simple, class and method, but the in sugared one it's just plain
simply bizarre looking. What was the intent?

Thanks.

[Joop Kiefte]

The difference is that the sugared version works just like a normal
Clojure function. It also eases a lot of things with macros like
(doto).

2011/6/15 James Keats <james....@gmail.com>:

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[Ken Wesson]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 9:52 AM, James Keats <james....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all. I'm struggling to see the point of this (from Pragmatic's
> Programming Clojure):
>
> Java  =>  rnd.nextInt()
> Clojure => (. rnd nextInt)
> sugared => (.nextInt rnd)
>
>
> What's the point of the sugared version? It's not any less to type.

Actually there's one fewer character -- a space.

> It's also incomprehensible to me how it came about. In the middle one
> it's simple, class and method, but the in sugared one it's just plain
> simply bizarre looking. What was the intent?

It's closer to typical function-call form: (.doSomething someNoun)
resembles (do-something some-noun) more than does (. someNoun
doSomething).

--
Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?!
Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true
hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more
civilized age.

[James Keats]

>
> > What's the point of the sugared version? It's not any less to type.
>
> Actually there's one fewer character -- a space.
>

Okay, I'll give you that.

> > It's also incomprehensible to me how it came about. In the middle one
> > it's simple, class and method, but the in sugared one it's just plain
> > simply bizarre looking. What was the intent?
>
> It's closer to typical function-call form: (.doSomething someNoun)
> resembles (do-something some-noun) more than does (. someNoun
> doSomething).
>

Right. That makes sense. I see the consistency here now. :-)

Thanks. Soldiering on now; I'll probably be back. :-D