Re: RFC: Filehandle type-defining punctuation

[Larry Wall]

Tom Christiansen writes:
: >Not sure I agree with that.  I think one point of confusion / perceived
: >difference between filehandles, open(), and basically every other
: >builtin is that all the others *return* what you want.  
: 
: Think of all the {file,dir}handle syscalls.  They don't do that.
: They autoviv an object.

Yes, but then each of those has to be explained specially.  People
*expect* assignment to "autovivify", as it were.  But open() et al
are essentially a 3rd syntax for constructors, and that's about one
syntax too many, give or take a few.

Larry