Re: a syntax derived from constant-time hash-based n-dim matrices in perl 5

[Nathan Wiger]

"David L. Nicol" wrote:
> 
> > One problem that immediately jumps out at me is how to do this:
> >
> >    @a[[@x], [@y]];
>
> I think I dealt with that in the next paragraph, suggesting
> 
>         @a["@x","@y"]

Well, this is not bad, only it's not without its problems. Say you
wanted to get your indices implicitly:

     @a[getindices()];
     @a[$r->get_x, $r->get_y];

Either of these could return an arrayref, but forcing quotes around them
means you'll need inbetweener variables or the @{} construct, neither of
which is really gracious.

I'm not trying to shoot the idea down point-blank, but I think it has
some practical usage problems that potentially overshadow the gains in
clarity.

-Nate