It was thus said that the Great David Cantrell once stated:
> On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 09:36:52PM -0800, Aaron J. Grier wrote:
>
> > this is exactly what I hate about perl. "there's more than one way to
> > do it" invariably means that some dumbfucks out there will attempt to do
> > it every single way possible in the language. perl apparently prides
> > itself on this.
>
> A general purpose language which can't be used in different ways to
> solve different problems is not fit for purpose. Are you proposing that
> programming languages should be rigid and unsuitable for a wide range of
> tasks?
Um ... <raises hand> ... I'd like somethimg a bit more consistent.
A typical programic idiom I use (when programming in C) is:
if (argc == 1)
do_some_process(stdin);
else
{
for (i = 1 ; i < argc ; i++)
{
input = fopen(argv[i],"r");
do_some_process(input);
fclose(input);
}
}
So imagine my surprise when:
if (scalar(@ARGV) == 1)
{ # the one bit of consistancy I can do without actually
&do_some_process(STDIN);
}
else
{
for ($i = 1 ; $i < scalar(@ARGV) ; $i++)
{
open INPUT,$ARGV[i];
&do_some_process(INPUT);
close INPUT;
}
}
Doesn't work at all. Problem one (remember, I come from a C background
here), $ARGV[0] *doesn't* contain the program name ($ARGV isn't right since
it's only defined when using <ARGV> apparently---lovely), so okay, I adjust
some numbers and it *still* fails because you can't pass file handles to
subroutines.
Only, it seems like you *can* but only if you use the *obvious* notation
open INPUT,$ARGV[i];
&do_some_processing(*INPUT);
close INPUT;
Never mind the fact that every @#...@#$ variable in Perl is preceeded by a
'$', '@' or a '%' *except* for filehandles, diretory handles and block
labels.
Yes, C has its quirks too, but at least there I can actually pass any type
of variable to a subroutine without having a special notation for a certain
class of variables.
-spc (And least you think otherwise, there's plenty to hate in C, but I'm
afraid I've lived with it long enough to subconsciously work around
its quirks ... )
