Re: Expanding the language primitives (was: Re: Reduce [was: Re: Random items (old p5p issues)])

[Johan Vromans]

Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> More importantly, the more primitives that perl provides, the wilder
> and more useful things people will be able to do.

Not quite. Its the functions that are provided that matter, not
whether they are primitives or not[1]. A small set of primitives with a
large set of functions is more powerful than just a moderate set of
primitives.

Compare with Emacs: a relatively small set of powerful built-ins and a
plethora of lisp functions for everything else.

-- Johan

[1] Tentative terminology: 
   primitive: a function built directly into perl
   function:  a function loadable into perl
   module:    a (collection of) functions written in Perl