On 26 Sep 2000, Perl6 RFC Librarian wrote:
> So, for example:
>
> package var; # main variable class
>
> # all the main Perl internal methods are defined, such
> # as TIESCALAR, TIEARRAY, STORE, FETCH, etc
>
> package int;
> use base 'var';
>
> # ideas for RFC 303
> use optimize storage => 16, # how much space
> growable => 1, # can we grow?
> growsize => 8, # how much to grow by
> integer => 1, # support ints
> string => undef, # but not strings
> float => undef, # or floats
> promote => 'bigint'; # promote to class
> # when outgrow
>
> # TIESCALAR, STORE, etc need not be redefined, since
> # they could simply inherit from var's, but perhaps
> # we could define special math ops per RFC 159.
>
> In this example, we've used the C<int> class to define several key
> optimizations for Perl to use. Since C<var> is the grandfather class of
> all variables, its C<STORE> and C<FETCH> methods can be used, which
> actually do the internals of storing values and using the hints set by
> the C<use optimize> pragma.
The suggested C< use optimize > pragma is starting to grow many heads.
C< use less > was such a simple little pragma, a general direction for
the interpreter to take. Here it seems that the optimizations apply to
the C< package int; > only. Are we suggesting that optimizations should
be localized? Can I C< use optimize 'memory' > in one package and C< use
optimize 'CPU' > in another? Do optimizations have block scope?
I like C< use less >. I trust that perl6 will DWIM.
Alan Gutierrez
