I think the original (or the "latest original") reason for breaking .meth from
meaning $_.meth is that $_ is transitory and there was no way back to the
nameless invocant. In the absense of having a way back, I and others
strongly advocated breaking the link. I think we hated to do it.
Now if we can introduce another way back so that we can always get to the
invocant if we want to, then I'd say lets leave .meth always working on $_ .
It does have beauty and simplicity.
So then, to get back to the invocant... I can't say that I liked many of the
proposals. The one that seemed to have merit though was $^. I'd propose the
following.
meth foo {
$_.meth; # defaults to the invocant
.meth; # operates on $_ which defaults to the invocant
$^.meth; # is the invocant
$^1.meth; # is the first invocant
$^2.meth; # is the second invocant
for 1 .. 10 {
$_.say; topic of for
.say; # use $_
$^.say; # stringifies invocant 1
$^1.say; # stringifies invocant 1
$^2.say # stringifies invocant 2
}
}
The rules then are simple. .meth always operates on $_. $_ is always the
current topic. $_ defaults to the invocant of the method. $^1 refers to the
first invocant. $^ is an alias for $^1. $^n refers to the nth invocant.
Nice and simple. No conflict with existing naming conventions.
Paul
