Jon Ericson wrote:
> I've spent almost a day trying to come up with a polite response to this
> suggestion. I have started this mail 3 or 4 times but deleted what I
> wrote because it was too sarcastic, angry or dismissive. This RFC
Thanks!
> strikes to the very heart of Perl as far as I'm concerned.
What's wrong with that? There are no rules as to what we are allowed
to discuss.
> Judging from your posts, you use perl largely in conjunction with PDL
> [1]. As I understand the situation, PDL uses objects (blessed scalar
This is true.
> references) to manipulate arrays because the standard perl array is
> inadequate for the task. Therefore, in your experience '@' is only used
> for a limited, rarely needed array and '$' for a wide variety of useful
> arrays. Hence this RFC.
Please don't think the RFC is PDL-porters derived - there are enough of those
to come :) This one is personal and based on how I view doing things.
> It seems to me that you could have picked a different slant on this
> RFC. Instead of forcing Perl to look like PDL, you could have proposed
> that perl allow PDL to look like Perl. PDL wouldn't exist if there
> wasn't something about Perl that people love. Otherwise, they would be
> working on FORTRAN or C or IDL. If perl can make another group of
Well FORTRAN and C are not array languages, and IDL costs N*$1000. Now
there IS Numerical Python if you can put up with indents!
> people happy, so much the better. But you have to realize that this
> change would make a large number of people miserable.
>
> Could you rework this RFC to be a pragma? Or propose making @ work with
> other types of arrays? Or withdraw it? The current form is offensive
> to me (and I suspect many other perl programers as well).
Offensive is a strong word for what is essentially a discussion about
computer lingo syntaces!
I am proposing what I think is a good long term improvement in perl, my
own view. Even if it doesn't go through (and I'd be very surprised if
it did) there are still good cases for making PDL arrays look like perl
arrays to abolish user confusion. There will probably be less-earthshaking
RFCs from pdl-porters along these lines.
Karl
