Likewise for the Perl example: to even know whether it's good or bad, one needs to know, for instance, that split (like many other functions) implicitly operates on the "$_" variable,
this "convenience" is one of the things that has oft annoyed me about perl.
Yet you make good use of pronouns in your english compositions. Is it the poor choice of name ($_), the subtle (or non-uniform?) rules about what they reference, or just lack of familiarity? I think pronouns are a great thing, in spoken and programming languages: http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?msr_tr_id=MSR-TR-2000-03 ... and I'm no defender of perl.
jim
Tim Newsham http://www.lava.net/~newsham/
