# Fixing the Piping/Chaining Issue (Rev 3)

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/fixing-the-piping-chaining-issue-rev-3/90836>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Tags:** multithreading, syntax, piping, chaining, threading\
**Created:** [November 26, 2022, 2:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/fixing-the-piping-chaining-issue-rev-3/90836 "2022-11-26T02:50:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 21

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**Author:** ![uniment](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/uniment/32/24532_2.png) [@uniment](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/uniment)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 5:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/fixing-the-piping-chaining-issue-rev-3/90836/21 "2022-12-02T17:18:00Z")

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> [@Sukera](#):
>
> Julia not having curly braces is part of the reason I like the language in the first place.

If this is the remaining objection, then I’m not too concerned. 😉

> [@Sukera](#):
>
> people who comment/engage have shifted quite a bit and I think this has become a bit of an echo chamber

Interesting take, considering that the active participants in each thread has been different each time. It seems instead that this thread is less of dogpile and shouting match, and more of a skeptical and pensive “hmm, that’s interesting…”. I think that’s a step in the right direction.

> [@Sukera](#):
>
> On a more concrete note - while `it` and `them` works well in a macro, it doesn’t work as well on the language level. … This is the problem with adding new keywords and ultimately why the proposals in the past used `_` , because that can’t be used as a variable name.

Not true. `it` and `them` are fully-local arguments to the chain, and they do not capture from their environment. In essence, they are _locally defined keywords_.

Locally-defined keywords aren’t unfamiliar if you have ever used the `as` keyword, or the `abstract` keyword, or the `type` keyword, which are keywords when used in a certain context, but outside of that context can be assigned other values.

> [@Sukera](#):
>
> this just feels much closer to being a new language than julia to me.

Indeed that has been one of my concerns too. This is, in part, why I’ve chosen to adopt concepts and keywords from natural language—so that if a concept is foreign to mathematics or other programming languages, at least it is familiar to anyone who speaks English.

Edit: The concepts are also familiar to people who don’t speak English, but the keywords are different. German has “es” and “sie,” Spanish has “lo/la” and “los/las,” and I know I shouldn’t trust [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pronouns), but it says Chinese has “tā” and “tāmen.” The universality of singular and plural pronouns makes this an attractive concept to piggyback on. I have chosen English pronouns because Julia uses English keywords.

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