On 6/11/07, Luke Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 6/11/07, Jonathan Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Still, Damian has a good point - which renders the bulk of this > discussion moot. The one thing left to consider (IMHO) is whether or > not it's worthwhile (or even possible) to go back to '$c ? $t : $f' or > to '$c ? $t ! $f'. As I said, the primary concern originally > expressed about the Perl 5 syntax involved matters of ambiguity which > seem to have been resolved since then. A case could be made that if > the Perl 5 syntax for this doesn't clash with the rest of Perl 6, it > should be used: anything else would be change for change's sake. First, don't consider it a change. We're making a new language, not modding Perl 5.
I'm concerned that the relevant precedent isn't just Perl5. The ?: spelling of the ternary is pretty deeply embedded in programming languages -- I'm hard pressed to think of a widely used language in the past 10-15 years that spells it differently (though that may say more about my experience than the universe of "widely used" languages). Put more practically, I don't think the issue is just moving people forward from Perl5; we need to think about whether it'll help or hinder users moving back and forth among several languages, or bringing familiarity with other languages to the process of learning Perl6. Granting that Perl6 is a new language, I think there's still a role for deferring to existing usage. If it's technically impossible, or would prevent Perl6 from delivering some other important benefit (e.g. would require a lot of special-casing elsewhere), then it's worth making a change. But I'm not sure pure orthogonality, visual impact, or similar considerations, adequate though they are for deciding how to implement a new operation, are sufficient cause to trade common usage for a novel one. <paranoia>There's also the less important social problem that Perl6 has already spent a lot of goodwill in its long gestation. I think it can be earned back by doing things well, because they've been thought through carefully, but the language will be viewed with some initial skepticism. That may be eased by sprinkling familiar ideas amongst the novel. Sure, it's still got +*-/, but would ?: hurt? At a minimum, is there a strong enough reason for changing it that it will be difficult for skeptics to describe it as merely another ideological change?</paranoia> -- Regards, Charles Bailey Lists: bailey _dot_ charles _at_ gmail _dot_ com Other: bailey _at_ newman _dot_ upenn _dot_ edu
