syntactic-sugar

I just came across a SQL statement that uses AS to alias tables, like this: SELECT all, my, stuff FROM someTableName AS a INNER JOIN someOtherTableName AS b ON a.id = b.id What I'm used to seeing is: SELECT all, my, stuff FROM someTableName a INNER JOIN someOtherTableName b ON a.id = b.id I'm assuming there's no difference and it's just syntactic sugar, but which of these is more prevalent/wide-spread? Is there any reason to prefer one over the other? Edited to clarify: I appreciate all the answers and all the points made, but the question was not why or why not to use table aliases. The

Does Scala have any syntactic sugar to replace the following code: val thread = new Thread(new Runnable { def run() { println("hello world") } }) with something more like: val thread = new Thread(() => println("hello world")) in cases when the trait/interface needs only one method to be implemented? If not, is there any chance to have this feature in Scala in the future? It is especially useful when one deals with Java classes. I found a similar question asked three years ago: Generically implementing a Java Single-Abstract-Method interface with a Scala closure? The answer says we should have

I'm starting to really love extension methods... I was wondering if anyone her has stumbled upon one that really blew their mind, or just found clever. An example I wrote today: Edited due to other users' comments: public static IEnumerable<int> To(this int fromNumber, int toNumber) { while (fromNumber < toNumber) { yield return fromNumber; fromNumber++; } } This allows a for loop to be written as a foreach loop: foreach (int x in 0.To(16)) { Console.WriteLine(Math.Pow(2, x).ToString()); } I can't wait to see other examples! Enjoy! The full solution is too large to put here, but I wrote a

On a lot of browsers I've tested, JavaScript blocks actually return a value. You can test it out in any console: for(var i = 0; i < 10; i++) { var sqrt = Math.sqrt(i); if(Math.floor(sqrt) === sqrt) { i; } } The "return" value is the last square number, that is, 9! But since it isn't an expression I suppose, you can't do this: for(var i = 0; i < 10; i++) { ... } + 5 That doesn't work. It gives + 5 , or 5 , of course, because it's a separate statement. Putting the loop in parentheses obviously fails, and if a block is in parentheses (e.g. ({f(); r}) - doesn't work) it's treated as an object and

What are all the instances of syntactic sugar in Scala? They are hard to search for since most/all of them are purely symbols and are thus hard to search for without knowing the name of the concept. TODO: Implicit conversions _ syntax for anonymous functions Other things I'm forgetting Jackson Davis Basics: a b is equivalent to a.b a b c is equivalent to a.b(c) , except when b ends in : . In that case, a b c is equivalent to c.b(a) a(b) is equivalent to a.apply(b) This is why the following definitions for an anonymous functions are identical: val square1 = (x: Int) => x x val square2 = new

I just ran across this error message while working in C# A property or indexer may not be passed as an out or ref parameter I known what caused this and did the quick solution of creating a local variable of the correct type, calling the function with it as the out / ref parameter and then assigning it back to the property: RefFn(ref obj.prop); turns into { var t = obj.prop; RefFn(ref t); obj.prop = t; } Clearly this would fail if the property doesn't support get and set in the current context. Why doesn't C# just do that for me? The only cases where I can think of where this might cause