On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 01:04:01AM -0700, Luke Palmer wrote: : This is pattern matching more than it is type comparison. And Perl's : all about pattern matching. I'm just wondering whether it needs I<two> : pattern archetectures.
I suspect it does, at least from the viewpoint of mere mortals. The regex engine is built around the notion of ordered rules, whereas the multi dispatch engine is designed to run rules in order of "distance". I think we'll have done good enough if the regex engine can be used at runtime against a list of actual argument types. The regex engine is allowed to have deep, powerful nooks, after all. People are trained not to expect to understand patterns on first glance. But I a strong gut feeling that the dispatch engine needs to remain transparent to casual readers--or there will never be any casual readers of Perl 6. Of course, someone will doubtless attempt this unification, since a single "use" can turn Perl into another language. It's just not a language I would have bothered to learn 25 years ago... Larry
