> Hmm. I just relized what he's talking about. As an example, most nonsimple
> statements (IE past-tense, ones with modal and action verbs, etc) end in the
> verb. For example, an english-speaker would say:
> I must walk the god. (Subject modal-verb action-verb direct-object.)
> A german-speaker would say:
> I must the god walk. (Subject modal-verb direct-object action-verb.)
> (Yes, I am a dislexic, agnostic insomniac.)
"The god I must walk", "walk the god I must", etc. They aren't immediately
familiar, but they are grammatical.
> This is exactly analgous to the perl form (english-perl):
> sort { f(a) <=> f(b) } @list; (Action-verb subordanate-verb (adverbal form)
> direct-object.) OTOH, for a german-speaker, sort @list {f(a) <=> f(b)}
> would be more natural (Action-verb direct-object subordanate-verb
> (infinitive form)). (Note, BTW, that gramaticly, perl statements always
> have a implied subject of "Intepreter" [0]. (Also note that in english, the
> adverbal form of a verb normaly ends with ly, in german it ends with en, and
> in perl is surrounded by curly-braces.))
You're saying that it would be more natural for an English speaker to say,
"Sort numerically this list", as opposed to "sort this list numerically"?
I disagree; the latter is more natural for English speakers. I don't see
this as evidence of "English Perl". You could also analogize your sort
example as:
sort { f(a) <=> f(b) } @list
"Apply this sort to this list"
The same holds true for at least Spanish and French. I don't know German.
Consider 'print':
print FILEHANDLE data;
This isn't the most intuitive form for English speakers, who would tend to
say:
"Print this data to this filehandle."
Rather than:
"Print to this filehandle this data.
> Then again, if you think of objects (in the OO sense) as doing things, then
> they normaly are the subject, and _not_ the indirect-object (in the english
> sense).
Well, then don't think of them that way. :) Perl objects of the class
variety are direct objects, indirect objects, subjects, and even verbs if
$_[0] is discarded in methods. It's true they are most commonly subjects,
but can be used as most anything. Isn't that great?
