Damian Conway
> print {STDERR} "darn"
Natha Wiger:
> STDERR->print("darn")
>
>Same amount of typing.
No: the spaces don't count, as they aren't even needed.
So it takes two more non-whites Damian's way, four more your way.
And you just lost being a listop, should that concern you.
But those are actually significantly different from one
another, but in a way you might not have considered (but
ought to). Yours in my ear reads
O mighty STDERR! I beseech thee to please print "darn".
compared with
Please print to STDERR some "darn" thing.
I know Damian never inflected it this way, but I always find the
leading object a bit (e)vocative. It's more natural to me in regular
coding to put the verb first; call me Imperative. The verb (ie,
the *action*) is almost always the most important thing there in
the code--it's what's *happening*. That dative doodad is merely
an interested party, and doesn't really seem to merit being placed
in the initial position, that place that's most important in
utterances because it grabs your attention before that attention
is lost. If you think about it, this is hardly the only place where
Perl allows you the freedom to put the most important thing up front
where it will be most readily noticed.
--tom
