gistfile1.txt

In Lapsang static composition can be used to add features to types in a way that can be validated by the compiler. 
The syntax for a new function component takes the form:

 package some.component.package.name
     component returnType functionName(type someName) default implFunctionName

     component returnType implFunctionName(type someName)
         code goes here


As an example, let's imagine we want to add a new method to all functions, called nameOfFirstParameter, 
which returns the name of the first parameter, or "None" if it has none. The code might look something like:

 package my.silly.component
     component string nameOfFirstParameter(function this) self default
         return "None" if this%parameters.length == 0 else this%parameters[0].name

The consequence of this is that, as long as my.silly.component package is exposed to the application then for 
every function (including nameOfFirstParameter [I think]) can expose its first parameter name via code such as

 var itsName = someMethod.nameOfFirstParameter()

To explain the "%", it needs to be realised that - because their is no concept of a base class - anything 
that needs to be universally applied across the language is done so via components. Thus there is a component 
Metadata built in to the language core libraries. Because x.Metadata.yyy will be such a common expression, the 
syntactic sugar version of x%yyy is also provided.