>>>>> "BL" == Bart Lateur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
BL> On 10 Sep 2000 00:33:43 -0400, Chaim Frenkel wrote:
>> I view it as a mis-feature.
BL> I'm sorry to disagree. But flattening of argument lists is one of those
BL> things that make Perl, Perl. Change it, and it's not Perl anymore.
Sorry, I don't see list flattening as _fundemental_ to perl. It is
just the way it is currently done. Could you tell me how it could be
_fundemental_?
How would perlishness suddenly break if (@foo, @bar) = (@bar, @foo)
would not be valid.
>> One is unable to return multiple arrays,
>> or to pass through multiple arrays without resorting to messy extra
>> punctuation characters.
BL> You can pass and return references. The thing gets quite a bit faster in
BL> the process, too. If only Perl had a neater way to make aliases to the
BL> arguments passed ( *ary = shift; looks very messy)...
As I said, using references adds lots of line noise. If I understand
it correctly, this is the logical result of Larry's decision not to
allow automatic dereferencing. (No nested lists, etc.)
Being able to pass aggregates without flattening, and without having
to use reference syntax (@$foo), would fall out of Damian's "parameters
once known as prototypes" RFC.
I wonder why not going full LISP with nested lists would be that bad.
<chaim>
--
Chaim Frenkel Nonlinear Knowledge, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] +1-718-236-0183
