On 8/4/05, Abigail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What would the gain be if you remove $[?
Only internal gains. Mostly memory improvements, since each control OP in the optree stores $[ on 32 bytes currently. Also, probably unnoticeable speed improvements (bug integer addition isn't that expensive.) > We wouldn't be able to remove $[ > before 5.12, and when will that be? 2010? It'll be work to remove it, > with the possibility to introduce bugs, it's likely to break some old > programs that have been running smootly for years. And it's not that > you often see new code using $[. Most true. > In fact, I cannot recall ever seeing anyone posting code to Usenet or > Perlmonks that used $[ - except code using $[ for the sake of using $[. > > I'd say, let it rest. It seems to be hardly used anyway. > > The only chance I'd recommend is to _remove_ mentioning of $[ from > the documentation in places like 'index' and 'splice'. Describe $[ > in perlvar, mention its use is discouraged, and don't mention it in > perlfunc or perldata. Unclutter documentation... that's very un-dan-jacobsonesque, I like this idea.
