Comment by wruza

I wish languages had the following:

  let x = block {
     …
     return 5
  } // x == 5

And the way to mark copypaste, e.g.

  common foo {
    asdf(qwerty(i+j));
    printf(“%p”, write));
    bar();
  }
  …(repeats verbatim 20 times)…
  …
  common foo {
    asdf(qwerty(i+k));
    printf(“%d”, (int)write); // cast to int
    bar();
  }
  …

And then you could `mycc diff-common foo` and see:

  <file>:<line>: common
  <file>:<line>: common
  …
  <file>:<line>:
    @@…@@
    -asdf(qwerty(i+j));
    +asdf(qwerty(i+k));
    @@…@@
    -printf(“%p”, write));
    +printf(“%d”, (int)write); // cast to int

With this you can track named common blocks (allows using surrounding context like i,j,k). Without them being functions and subject for functional entanglement $subj discusses. Most common code gets found out and divergences get bold. IDE support for immediate highlighting, snippeting and auto-common-ing similar code would be very nice.

Multi-patching common parts with easily reviewing the results would also be great. Because the bugs from calling a common function arise from the fact that you modify it and it suddenly works differently for some context. Well, you can comment a common block as fragile and then ignore it while patching:

  common foo {
    // @const: modified and fragile!
    …
  }

You still see differences but it doesn’t add in a multi-patch dialog.

Not expecting it to appear anywhere though, features like that are never considered. Maybe someone interested can feature it in circles? (without my name associated)