Luke Palmer wrote:
Every regex engine in every language uses $1 or \1. This includes Java,
JavaScript, C, PHP, Python, awk, sed, the GNU regex libs, etc. Somehow
other languages seem ok with this, because it's a widely-used convention.
Perl 6's patterns are _not_ regexes anymore. But I doubt that we
won't be imitated, because the new regexes are way better than the old
ones. Breaking cruft for a reason and all that.
Ok, I'll wait on this one. I've said my piece. Maybe they'll go back and
update awk and sed after Perl 6 comes out. (Ok now I'm just being
sarcastic, sorry. :-)
The fact that we use . instead of -> (like every other language on
the planet)?
You're using my argument for me - thanks. See above.
Huh? So you want to go back to Perl 5's arrow? *Anybody* coming to
Perl 6 from some non-Perl 5 language is going to be more comfortable
with dot.
No, no, you misread that completely. Basically, you're saying to use the
"." for objects because "everyone else does". I'm using the same
supporting argument ("everyone else does") for why to start with $1.
BTW, C and PHP both use -> "still".
It sounds like you want a backwards-compatible change. From the
outset we knew that this wasn't our goal. Perl 5 is full to the brim
with syntax, and there's pretty much nowhere we can add anything, and
there's tons of cruft that we had to get rid of.
Consider Perl 6 to be a derivative, not an extension, of Perl 5.
I really do understand that - really. But I think things are getting a
bit overboard. The Latin-1 sigil is another discussion that nobody wants
to admit is a legit problem, despite numerous legitimate issues. Even
being able to type in the syntax itself is going to be problematic!
Anyways, you can listen or not listen to those of us from real, large,
corporate environments. I'm just trying to temper the enthusiasm for
many of the real improvements in Perl 6 with some of the real costs -
which are largely being ignored as "no big deal".
I'm a big Perl advocate, but I guess I'm just not sure if I'm gonna be a
big Perl 6 advocate yet. There's alot of downsides and real business risk.
-Nate
