AutoHotkey Community

from the docs
http://www.autohotkey.net/~Lexikos/Auto ... ive_Arrays


i'm curious why a variable is de-referenced using parentheses instead of the usual %% signs?

and also, why do variables as VALUES not need to be de-referenced at all?

i guess, more generally, why the difference between key and value notation? why not allow keys to have the same (imo more natural) notation as values?



here, variable 'one' doesnt need to be de-referenced because its used as a VALUE, but variable 'myvar' does since its a KEY

Sure. I've mostly neglected the help file table of contents, if that's what you're talking about.
Any key which doesn't strictly follow the rules for a variable name is treated as an expression. (var) is an expression which yields a variable. GetMyKey() and prefix . suffix are equally valid.
The premise of your question is flawed: {key: value} does dereference value. There's nothing special about the value in a key-value pair - it's interpreted like any other part of the expression.
Literal key names are far more common than variable ones. Do you want to use quotation marks around every key name? It's perfectly legal to do so, but generally inconvenient and less readable, IMO.
They do; the only exception is that if it looks like just a variable name, it's treated as a key name instead.

thanks that clears it up.

regarding higher order functions, it seems that AHK was already able to do this with dynamic function calling, but heres an example for those who didn't realize (like myself):