Re: if then else otherwise ...
This makes no sense. ?: tests a boolean value, which is either true or false. There is no ternary state for a boolean value. True/False, Yes/No, On/Off, 1/0. Are you suggesting Yes/No/Maybe? Or are you redefining True and False? Doesn't matter. What you're asking has no counterpart in boolean logic, and as such would make no sense in any computer language. You may have an idea, but you are saying it wrong if you do. On Sunday 29 July 2001 07:22, raptor wrote: cond ? then : else : otherwise
Re: if then else otherwise ...
Oh boo hoo. Might I suggest a good introductory Perl book? p On Saturday 28 July 2001 12:32, raptor wrote: I've/m never used/ing elseif ( i hate it :) from the time I have to edit a perl script of other person that had 25 pages non-stop if-elsif sequence) ... never mind there is two conditions in your example... of coruse i've think of this just like a shortcut nothing special ... later on :
RE: ~ for concat / negation (Re: The Perl 6 Emulator)
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:31:22PM +0100, Graham Barr wrote: We can have a huge thread, just like before, but until we see any kind of update from Larry as to if he has changed his mind it is all a bit pointless. For what it's worth, I like it. Does anyone else see a problem with =~ ? Does anyone else see a problem with $negated=~$scalar; ? :) Other than that we appear to be using rot13 against our operators, not particularly. p
RE: Social Reform
If you have not been following this thread, then maybe that is the reason for the confused-sounding nature of your email. I would say Simon was the one ignoring an issue and attacking a person, not Vijay. I think Vijay was the one pointing out that this person (Me) was contributing to the discussion and that a personal attack from Simon was inappropriate (If I may paraphrase you Vijay. Correct me if I'm wrong.) You read it wrong, Daniel. I was comforting Vijay, not scolding him. p
RE: Social Reform
On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 05:19:26PM -0700, Daniel S. Wilkerson wrote: I would say Simon was the one ignoring an issue and attacking a person, not Vijay. You are wrong. Go back through the archives. Vijay has posted four messages: two of which are critical of Perl, two of which are pretty heated personal attacks on me. None of those four does anything useful for Perl 6. If he *hasn't* ignored the issue - which is Perl 6 - please show me a URL for a message. Then I'd point out all of them, Simon. Perl 6 reform is larger than language syntax and the innards of an interpreter. Perl 6 reform has been claimed to be a social one as well. I would therefore suggest that any email posted by any person, the goal of which email was to call to order a foul temper or misbehaving community member or to correct the formation of cliques among us, such an email would be precisely on topic for the reformation of this language. I consider this social reform of at least equal importance to the Perl community as any new syntactic differences and changes in underlying parser engines. I personally consider social reform to be far more important than the latter, but I do not expect everyone to share that particular opinion. Let us please not fall into the P5P trap of considering as valid contributions only segments of this or that code applied to the Perl core on a particular operating system. That is an old argument that cannot be won. All people contribute if they add value to the Perl language or culture, be it in documentation, related software, work on any operating system, or social rehabilitation. No subculture or group should consider itself of more importance or value to the language or community than another. No subculture or group should consider itself above reproof, whether from within that subculture, or from without. Tom Christiansen once argued contrawise, as did Sarathy to a large extent. It finally came out that Tom considered value only what directly improved perl within the perl core on his own system, meaning his own contributions. Sarathy argued that only contributors of code were helpful to the perl community, leaving out testers, documentors, module writers, and basically everyone else. Neither person was right, and neither position is remotely arguable in a movement whose (at least) /partner/ emphasis is on the reformation of the community and revocation of attitudes like these two expressed. If Vijay chooses to concentrate his efforts within the social-reform arena, I do not consider his contrubutions any less valid or any less efficacious than your own. p
RE: Social Reform
-Original Message- From: Bart Lateur [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 10:48 AM To: Perl 6 Language Mailing List Subject: Re: Social Reform On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:54:13 +0100, Simon Cozens wrote: On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 05:19:26PM -0700, Daniel S. Wilkerson wrote: I would say Simon was the one ignoring an issue and attacking a person, not Vijay. You are wrong. Go back through the archives. Vijay has posted four messages: two of which are critical of Perl, two of which are pretty heated personal attacks on me. None of those four does anything useful for Perl 6. Well, I *have* been following the discussion. And to me, it looks indeed like you, Simon, were indeed attacking ME on non-technical grounds. Vijay just jumped in for him, like a lioness trying to protect her kittens. Which he does from time to time, as do most of us, myself likely included. And, when it does, it should be group-corrected. (Realize that you're doing the same thing right now, Bart. Note, I agree with you, and I point it out only to show how easy a trap it is to fall into.) However, Simon can also be reasoned with, and will admit a mistake. I've seen this in him: I've seen his heart in the right place, and I accept a bit of foot-in-mouth from time to time from anyone. However, I feel it would be more appropriate in this case to come to an understanding that when such things happen, and they will happen, that we group-correct the message, and not the messenger. If someone shows passion underlying a message, there's usually a truth hidden in the fumbled words. We should address the subject of passion, and not the passion itself. We are a group of mix-and-match volunteers. We have varying interests, varying skills, and varying passions. It is nearly impossible to say anything with passion without getting on someone's nerves. (On the other hand, if everything is said without passion, we end up just plain bored and boring.) To grow as a community and a culture, we need to accept the passion, ignore any verbal flubs, and address the underlying, pertinent sentiments, ideas, concerns, and brainstorms. I believe it was Richard Nixon who made a groundbreaking trip to (IIRC) some South American country. Talks went wonderfully well, and agreements were made, and everybody was happy. Upon leaving, however, Nixon gave his double peace sign. Well, lo and behold, that sign is approximately equal to american culture giving someone the finger. That so insulted the people of that country that everything that had been done and said became immediately undone and worthless. That's a pretty silly response from a civilized nation to a symbol the speaker expressed in good will. About a year and a half ago I sincerely and lengthily complimented the Python culture on its conduct. A couple of months ago I retracted that. They had not achieved that final stage of group cooperation, they simply hadn't enterd middle stage of rudeness and cliques where we are currently striving to climb out of. If we can accomplish this, we will be the first major group to do so in an online forum that I know of. If we can accomplish this, then Larry is wrong about one thing: we will be breaking tremendous new ground, and going where no language has gone before... to cooperation and acceptance within the community from the meerest of members to the crown itself. p
RE: Social Reform
Well, I *have* been following the discussion. And to me, it looks indeed like you, Simon, were indeed attacking ME on non-technical grounds. Vijay just jumped in for him, like a lioness trying to protect her kittens. Which he does from time to time, as do most of us, myself likely included. And, when it does, it should be group-corrected. I'll correct this before it's had a chance of being misunderstood. He refers to Simon, not to Vijay. Pronouns are making me nervous these days... ;-) p
Social Reform
Previously, on St. Elsewhere... Simon(e) writes... But of course, I'm sure you already know what makes good language design, because otherwise you wouldn't be mouthing off in here... Why is it that Me is *mouthing off*, but you're not? Why is that? What makes you so *special*? The fact you wrote a Perl book?! A book with more typographical errors than it has pages? *Zut!* Actually, Simon's not that bad. We don't always get along, and sometimes disgree less than quietly, but he generally makes sense. I HAVE NOT followed this thread, so I'm only talking in generalities. When trouble strikes, the type you're talking about, within a Perl forum, it has been my experience that it has the appearance of ignoring an issue and attacking a person regardless of what that person said. The more true the person's statements, the more aggressively people, specifically referring to Jan Dubois and Tom Christiansen in my own personal experience, attack the person with complete and utter nonsense, usually personal, usually untrue, apparently in order to avoid having to answer to anything or anyone. I have seen these attacks come in such a way as to specifically shut a person up by provoking him to wrath, then pointing out that he is impossible to have a discussion with... and quiet resumes with the issues still in place. This was a huge problem in the Perl 5 Porters, and it has recently begun coming into the Perl 6 groups. This is why I've been distancing myself from this group, including your previous call to arms. We will achieve social reform only by refusing to conduct ourselves in this manner, and without social reform, Perl 6 may as well not exist for all the good it does us as a community. Sure, it gives some overbrained geeks a chance to play around with language design for a while, but that's about it. And, frankly, I think Simon's been a bit nicer since his book came out. I'm just happy that it's red and doesn't have a trademarked animal on the front. ;-) Me may be s/wrong/clueless/... but I don't think any one of you has actually understood what he/she is talking about. Me is at least one level of abstraction higher than all of the rebuttals that have been fired back in this thread. HOWEVER, (again, not reading OR caring about this thread), my first reponse to me since his initial barrage a couple of months ago was that he had no good intention. He(?) has since changed his attitude somewhat, but that initial impression may be getting in the way for him. Right or wrong, Me or *you* for that matter...has the same right to post to this list...Otherwise, it should be a private list, perhaps: Unfortunately, if we keep going in the way we're going, this will eventually be a semi-private list the same what that P5P became one in order to keep from having to take responsibility for their own actions or lack thereof. This coin has two sides, Vijay. Larry Wall, Damian and the Acolytes of Doom debating Perl6 This particular acolyte (the writer of this email - I would say 'me' but that would make no sense in this context) just calls 'em as he sees 'em, nothing to hide, no book rights or contracts to protect, no financial reason to speak any way other than truth as best I know it. Just how much $foo can dance on the head of a dot operator Is that you really want? Why can't we (cough...) just get along? Think about it (for a change...). I read somewhere about the different stages of an online group. I believe it was referring to IRC channels or newsgroups, but this applies here as well. It describes that at first there is a lot of public interest because people discuss without being told to shut up. They address problems, and discuss things openly. In a later stage (there are several stages, but I forget what they all are), ego, conceit, and bad attitude creep in. You can see such attitudes on the P5P, EFNet #linux, and a few other places where people have gotten stuck in this trap. The final stage, which I believe that EFNet #perl has begun to achieve to some degree, and which we must strive to achieve, is an equilibrium. (Actually it forks three ways: a) equilibrium, b) dispersal to obliviion, or c) just plain stuck at the middle stage.) That middle stage is unfortunate, but it must come in order to advance beyond it, according to my reading. I'm not concerned about this or that butthead for the time being. I'm concerned that, should those of us who still have hopes for a new perl culture get discouraged and leave, buttheads will be all that's left, and we'll have something even worse than the P5P. Social reform takes time. I'm willing to wait it out as long as there is some evidence that it is occuring in at least some minor degree. However, attacking a person for making a valid point is never appropriate. I don't know that this has happened, but plenty of experience with this nonsense with Perl higher-ups leads me to believe that it's the most likely cause of your post. p
RE: Multi-dimensional arrays and relational db data
-Original Message- From: Simon Cozens [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 3:46 AM To: Vijay Singh Cc: Me; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Multi-dimensional arrays and relational db data On Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 10:13:28PM -0800, Vijay Singh wrote: Why is it that Me is *mouthing off*, but you're not? Why is that? What makes you so *special*? In Me's defence, at least they do occasionally produce some useful thoughts about Perl 6, and are not here simply for personal attacks on one particular contributor. The fact you wrote a Perl book?! A book with more typographical errors than it has pages? *Zut!* You know they say Publish and be damned! :) Hey, I like your book. I've never read it, but I did buy it. Mostly because it wasn't ORA. And if you think Simon's book is bad, you evidently haven't seen the ORA books coming out nowadays. I wonder if they are even proofread at all anymore. p
RE: Python...
Perl is far more practical than experimental. Not at the moment. That's the problem. (Note the subtle subject change back to its original intent.) p
RE: Python...
-Original Message- From: Vijay Singh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2001 10:02 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Python... Python? Didn't know you were so into tuples... I thought your head would be turned by Ruby ;-) It is. But I'm afraid that Ruby is not as mature as Python. It's a business decision. I need a mature, /relatively/ stable language to plan my next few development projects. Perl is looking a bit shaky at the moment. p
RE: 1 until defined(getvalue()); return it;
Where's the likes of David Grove when you need one? I don't even know what you're talking about. Leave me alone. I'm learning Python... again. p
RE: Properties and 0 but true.
That's not how I see it. The filehandle is naturally true if it succeeds. It's the undef value that wants to have more information. In fact, you could view $! as a poor-man's way of extracting the error that was attached to the last undef. If I were wealthy enough in time and patience to forego poor-man's error handling for exceptions and verbosity I'd be programming in C++ with PCRE. David T. Grove Blue Square Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Properties and 0 but true.
David Grove writes: : That's not how I see it. The filehandle is naturally true if it : succeeds. It's the undef value that wants to have more information. : In fact, you could view $! as a poor-man's way of extracting the error : that was attached to the last undef. : : If I were wealthy enough in time and patience to forego poor-man's error : handling for exceptions and verbosity I'd be programming in C++ with PCRE. Thank you. I think... I hope you weren't reading my remark to say that $! is going away, Naw, I just cringe when I hear exception and perl in the same sentence. Heretofore they have been violently adamant if not oxymoronic antitheses. p
RE: Damian Conway's Exegesis 2
--- Dan Sugalski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh, didn't Larry tell you? We're making perl's parser locale-aware so it uses the local language to determine what the keywords are. I thought that was in the list of things you'd need to take into account when you wrote the parser... ;-P mios @ventanas son inmutables; Oh! Joy! Oh! Rapture! Oh! Eternal bliss! Have you ever tried to maintain a program written in Hindi? Will ebonics be included in this locale thingy? p
RE: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns
On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 01:25:51PM +0200, Bart Lateur wrote: There must be some reason why a language like Sather isn't more popular. I think that iters are part of the problem. That smacks of the Politician's Syllogism: Something is wrong. This is something. Therefore this is wrong. I think the more immediate problem with Sather is that it's totally obscure. I'd never heard of it. I'd never read any articles about it. It has no publicity. If people haven't heard of it, it'll remain unpopular. Iters or no iters. Naw, they simply haven't gotten into the rage of Perlbashing, which seems to be how Python, PHP, and Ruby have made any headway. C# is going there too, but Microsoft makes it too obvious (nobody of any dignified talent reads about MS technology without a salt shaker handy.) p
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 04:50:17PM -0400, John Porter wrote: Pardon my indelicacy, but - Screw how it looks in Perl5. I'm not telling you how it *looks* in Perl 5, I'm telling you (in Perl 5 terms) what it will *mean*. nice save p
RE: On Vacation
-Original Message- From: Larry Wall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2001 6:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: On Vacation [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : And about the whole throwing-out-baby-in-one-grand-bathwater-disposal-motion : trope, I'd like to say that my conception of what the volunteer : participants on the p6 lists have been about is neither giving baby : a brain transplant nor grooming him, but rather building a replacement : baby which we can then sneak into the former baby's crib, without the parents : noticing anything is up until, like young Clark Kent, he suprisingly : bites through his spoon. Clark Kent will learn not to bite through his spoon, but Bruce Wayne will never have the option. Can you put that into Larry, Dick, Tim, and Bill terminology? p
RE: Perl5 Compatibility, take 2 (Re: Perl, the new generation)
Well, I think we should take a step back and answer a few key questions:
1. Do we want to be able to use Perl 5 modules in a
Perl 6 program (without conversion)?
For a while, quite possibly, I'd say.
When 5.6 came out, I was in module hell, trying to get 5.005 modules to
compile with 5.6. Most of the ones giving the most trouble were the most
popular/demanded. That's not something I'd like to see repeated.
The largest problem may be in non-compiled modules, perl-only,
user-designed. If I have a store of these, it might be handy to keep them
around for a while. I'm not going to gripe about this as much as others may,
becuase my modules are small and tidy. Xerox will likely have a different
opinion.
2. Do we want to be able to switch between Perl 5 and
Perl 6 in a single file (by using module to dictate
P6 and package P5)?
I personally don't see how this is helpful outside the context of using Perl
5 modules. Actually, outside of using Perl 5 modules (interfacing with them
or useing them), I don't see how this is anything but obfuscated choo-choo
train Perl.
Answer: not as stated, no.
3. Do we want to assume Perl 5 or Perl 6 code? If we
assume P5, then we have to look for module somewhere.
If we assume P6, we can look for a number of differences,
such as $foo[1], $foo{bar}, etc to identify P5 code.
We may not have to assume either, as long as we can deal with separate
executables or separate symlinks during a transition.
Answer: no. (Even though it wasn't a yes or no question... you cheated ;-)
4. Do we want to be able claim 100% compatibility, or
99% except typeglobs, in which case if *foo is
seen we just drop with Typeglobs not supported?
I don't think we should claim compatibility at all. If we have the ability
to work with either/or, then they can be separate entities IMO. The hardest
part is convincing Dan that we need the ability to work with Perl 5 or Perl
6 with AND without markups in either.
Answer: no.
The more we answer yes then the more complex it is. ;-)
David T. Grove
Blue Square Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: The 5% solution
-Original Message- From: Simon Cozens [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 8:01 AM To: Dave Mitchell Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The 5% solution On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 10:19:10AM +0100, Dave Mitchell wrote: to be such that the writing of the Perl 5 to 6 translator utility is still feasable. If you're at TPC this year, you'll hear me how explain how translators *far* weirder than simply Perl 5 to Perl 6 are possible. :) Briefly: We want the Perl 6 runtime to be an equivalent of the Microsoft CLR, so that if you can somehow get bytecode onto it - from whatever language - you can run it. ... at half the speed with twice the bugs and no security and no meaningful error messages but lots of good marketing verbage... I'd say we aim a bit higher than a Microsoft example, but point taken nonetheless. p
RE: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns ::::: new mascot?
/me likes. /me likes a lot. David T. Grove Blue Square Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Dave Hartnoll [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 8:56 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns : new mascot? (apologies if this is a duplicate - I think my last post has gotten lost). The RFC pleads for a community spirit from ORA. Barring that, it seeks a new symbol for the community entirely I'd suggest a mongoose - eats poisonous snakes for breakfast. There's a sort of tie-in with Perl Mongers == Perl Mongoose as well :-) Dave.
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
Nope, I still think most ordinary people want different operators for strings than for numbers. Dictionaries and calculators have very different interfaces in the real world, and it's false economy to overgeneralize. Witness the travails of people trying to use cell phones to type messages. Logic error: False analogy. But as for the different operators, true, I believe, as long as we aren't introducing strong typing, or traditional typing in the $%@ sense. This addresses clarity without imposing verbosity. Add verbosity and there's no reason not to migrate to C# or Java. But then, none of this has been proposed so far except in the form of questions and concerns. p
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
-Original Message- From: John Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 11:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: what I meant about hungarian notation Larry Wall wrote: : do you think conflating @ and % would be a perl6 design win? Nope, I still think most ordinary people want different operators for strings than for numbers. Different operators, conflated data type. That's what we have for scalars already. Makes sense to have it for containers indexed by scalar as well. I don't disagree that it's a good thing, but with this piece alone aren't we falling FAAR short of that 95% mark? p
RE: Perl, the new generation
On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 11:55:36AM -0700, Larry Wall wrote: If you talk that way, people are going to start believing it. [snip] Some of us are are talking that way because we already beleive it. You can't make the transition from Attic Greek to Koine without changing how people fundamentally view their language. Apocalypse two made me a believer. The changes are beautiful. It's calling it Perl and relying on subliminal pursuasion to ask users to consider it the same that bothers me. That's a very Microsoftish tactic. To me, any change, regardless of how small or great it may be, that alters a language in a way that will require maintenance to come into standard, is not a change, but a fork. (Regardless of translators. I'm afraid that this will be as much vapourware as B::.) p
RE: Perl, the new generation
-Original Message- From: Adam Turoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 3:31 PM To: David Goehrig Cc: Larry Wall; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Perl, the new generation On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 12:13:13PM -0700, David Goehrig wrote: On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 11:55:36AM -0700, Larry Wall wrote: If you talk that way, people are going to start believing it. [snip] Some of us are are talking that way because we already beleive it. You can't make the transition from Attic Greek to Koine without changing how people fundamentally view their language. Apocalypse two made me a believer. There's language and then there's language. Is English the same language it was 50 years ago? No, but it's substantially similar, and all of the old thoughts are still parsable and comprehendable. The reverse isn't strictly true. Have you ever tried to get a computer to understand English identically as spoken by a Texan, the Queen of England, and a California surfer? Same language? Yup. And? p
RE: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns ::::: new mascot?
Probably not if it had scales, webbed feet, a hookbill, antennae, a furry coontail, and udders. Otherwise, if it looks like a camel at all, it's considered a trademark violation. I remember someone (whether at O'Reilly or not I don't remember) saying that, even if it looks like a horse but has a hump, it's not allowed. Or was that an alpaca with a llama... The RFC pleads for a community spirit from ORA. Barring that, it seeks a new symbol for the community entirely. A three-humped camel may give a good visual for Perl 6 as it exists today (fantasy and a bit convoluted), but it may be a bit difficult to apply to the upcoming completed language. ;-) BTW, what happened to meta? After a server outage of some length I believe I was removed, but it appears no longer to exist when I try to subscribe. David T. Grove Blue Square Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: RFC850 host name inserted by qmail-smtpd [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of David L. Nicol Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 5:12 PM To: Larry Wall; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns : new mascot? Larry Wall wrote: there seems to be a shortage of three-humped camels. At last! the unencumbered image for the mascot! Could O'Reilly really claim a three-humped camel was an image of a camel, with a straight face?
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
Hungarian notation is any of a variety of standards for organizing
a computer program by selecting a schema for naming your variables
so that their type is readily available to someone familiar with
the notation.
I used to request hungarian notation from programmers who worked for me,
until I saw the actual compliance with that request culminate in a local
variable named l_st_uliI. Of course, that's an static unsigned int i used
as a simple iterator in local scope. Of course, written more appropriately,
this would have just been static unsigned int i. At that point, Hungarian
notation fell apart for me. Its strict use adds (IMO) as much confusion as
MicroSoft's redefinition of C, with thousands of typedefs representing basic
types (LPSTR and HWND come to mind as the most common).
Just as Python is a language that enforces the common practice of
sane indentation by making it part of the language, Perl is a
language that enforces a dialect of hungarian notation by making
its variable decorations an intrinsic part of the language.
False analogy, bad example, and semantic foofoo. Python's indentation is a
burden to me. It defies flexibility and places a requirement on verbosity.
The only more annoying language I know of in terms of strict structure is
VB, which places my neat colmnar comments in irregular endings at the end of
a line (can't line anything up). Readability, to me, is the ability to MAKE
it readable, not an arbitrary rule to provide (a pretense of) readability by
forcing me to put my squiggly where I don't want it to go. As for the
Hungarian thing, Perl's $%@ is a far cry from it, though I have seen
$strSomething in new programmers.
What if, instead of cramming everything into scalar to the point
where it loses its value as a data type that magically converts
between numeric and string, as needed, we undo the Great Perl5
Dilution and undecorate references.
This is frightening me too. I really don't like the thought of
$i = 1.0;
$i += 0.1 if $INC;
$i .= Foo, Inc.;
(or more specifically a one line version that converts several times for a
single statement)
becoming
my str $i = 1.0;
if($INC) {
$i.asFloat += 0.1;
}
$i.asString .= Foo, Inc.;
We appear to be moving in that direction, trading programmer convenience
with politically correct verbosity.
my dog $spot; #spot is a dog that looks like a scalar
#spot holds neither numeric nor string data
#why is spot burdened with the BASIC
#string identifier?
$ isn't BASIC. (Actually, ancient BASIC was var$ rather than $var.) It's a
remnant from other UNIX utilities such that
set this = that;
print $this;
% and @ also have historical context that makes sense.
So what I am suggesting is, Scalar as catch-all for unclassifiables
that are neither strings nor numbers may have been a historic stopgap
measure in perl 5 which was seen to be unworkable given the profusion of
object types which became available in perl 6.
As long as it roughly resembles the Perl language.
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
snip sane indentation by making it part of the language, Perl is a language that enforces a dialect of hungarian notation by making its variable decorations an intrinsic part of the language. But $, @, and % indicate data organization, not type... Actually they do show type, though not in a traditional sense. Organization - type is semantic oddery, but they do keep our heds straight about what's in the variable. What if, instead of cramming everything into scalar to the point where it loses its value as a data type that magically converts between numeric and string, as needed, we undo the Great Perl5 Dilution and undecorate references. Continuing this further, why keep *any* notation at all? Why are vars with string or numeric data more worthy of $? What do you suggest? m_sc_I? (An object member variable that's a scalar named I.) Bah! snip We are at the point where there are so many variable types that the dollar sign on their names has become a hollow formality. Again, I'm confused. All I expect from something with a $ is that it's a single value, not necessarily a string or a number. And what if I want to treat a string-ifiable object as an untyped value? Is my var then $ worthy? If all types are references, $ does appear to lose some of its historical distinction. On the other hand, @foo[1] as a replacement for $foo-[1] does have some linguistic merit, so I've been listening to it with interest. My primary concern in this area is the introduction of forced verbosity. p
RE: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns ::::: new mascot?
I've often thought about trademarking a Shiny Ball (Perl) and an oyster/clam/mussel shell with association to the Perl language. The first thought is to give a demonstration on how rude holding this type of symbol is. But, I'd have licensed it to the community openly after an initial snit. I didn't do it because it would have taken $600 to prove a point. David T. Grove Blue Square Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Bart Lateur [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 10:51 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns : new mascot? On Wed, 9 May 2001 10:24:26 -0400, David Grove wrote: I remember someone (whether at O'Reilly or not I don't remember) saying that, even if it looks like a horse but has a hump, it's not allowed. Or was that an alpaca with a llama... The RFC pleads for a community spirit from ORA. Barring that, it seeks a new symbol for the community entirely. Several perl ports, and at least one book, use a shiny ball as a symbol. http://www.effectiveperl.com Scroll down to the heading Book Nickname (?). It took me a bit of thinking before I realized what this shiny ball represents. Odd. -- Bart.
RE: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns ::::: new mascot?
/me ponders the use of a cat in that context... Furball? David T. Grove Blue Square Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Simon Cozens [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 10:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns : new mascot? On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 04:50:51PM +0200, Bart Lateur wrote: Several perl ports, and at least one book, use a shiny ball as a symbol. It took me a bit of thinking before I realized what this shiny ball represents. Odd. Beginning Perl was going to use a blown-up microscope slide of a grain of sand - the beginnings of a pearl. Of course, nobody would have got it, so we went with a cat instead, which is even more oblique. -- You're never alone with a news spool.
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
-Original Message-
From: John Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 11:51 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: what I meant about hungarian notation
David Grove wrote:
$ is a singularity, @ is a multiplicity, and % is a
multiplicity of pairs
with likely offspring as a result. ;-)
Actually, % is also simply a multiplicity, differentiated only
by the semantics of its indexing.
Which is why I argued, some time back, in favor of conflating
arrays and hashes.
Probably rehashing (no pun intended) a lost cause, but this sounds logical
to me, if you're referring to something similar to PHP's Array['text']
notation. I.e.,
$array[1]
$hash{'one'}
becoming
@group['one']
or something similar in Perl 6. Heretofore the issue may have been the
indexing done by hashes, but since these will become actual objects in Perl
6, *how* they are indexed could be a simple flag (sorted | numeric, sorted |
string, fast | string, etc.)
The result would be two types of variables: single and multiple.
But I imagine that this has been gone over many times.
p
RE: what I meant about hungarian notation
[...] subject to ethnic cleansing. Culture wars arise spontaneously, but that should not deter us from enabling people to build new cultures. [...] Does that mean we can nuke Redmond and move on to reality in corporate IS now? };P
RE: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns ::::: new mascot?
Core Perl is probably trademarked to Sun Microsystems. ;-) David T. Grove Blue Square Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: John L. Allen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 1:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns : new mascot? On Wed, 9 May 2001, Simon Cozens wrote: Beginning Perl was going to use a blown-up microscope slide of a grain of sand - the beginnings of a pearl. Of course, nobody would have got it, so we went with a cat instead, which is even more oblique. Hmmm, I suppose a blown-up grain of sand could also be used on the cover of a book about advanced perl internals, because a grain of sand is what's at the core of a pearl. John.
RE: Re[2]: Apoc2 - STDIN concerns ::::: new mascot?
As my Con Law professor was fond of saying, Horse hooey!* Camel cookies. ;-) These types of issues are not nearly so clear cut as many company's would have people believe. E.g., O'Reilly is book publisher that engages in the business of publishing and selling books for a profit. They specifically are not a computer software company (well, they, of course, do or have developed some software for profit, but this fact does not reach to this example) nor do they possess a proprietary interest in Perl. I'm afraid you don't know much about O'Reilly. O'Reilly does have both proprietary interest in Perl products and financial interest in compan(y|ies) who produce Perl software. (How many of the several current valid Win32 Perl's do you see on the ORA website?) The argument could quite well extend there to software. I suspect whomever made the above assertion was actually saying the *company* would consider it a violation and, therefore, seek I'm not sure what the allusion was (horse or alpaca), but I do believe that it was Edie I who was alluding. Ask her (but wear protective gear). ** The above said, please note, imo, this is decidely off-topic to this list, and I'd suggest any further discussion on the matter be taken off list. (I don't mean to arrogant the decisional authority of this list to myself; but only to be sensitive to the topic of the list and the expectations of list members.) I asked about the meta group, but haven't heard anything yet. It really belongs there. When possible, if there remains interest in the thread, I'll redirect it there myself.
.NET
I've been recently looking over the specification for C# and the .NET platform (and falling for very little of the verbage: almost every line of the first chapter of book I'm reading contains at least one oxymoron), and am seeing some similarities between some of the proposed goals of Perl 6 and the .NET platform. The one IL fits all languages type of thing, distributed objects, and many things in .NET have been discussed similarly here. Larry, et. al.: Is this similarity on purpose? If so, we'll be stopping short of insanity and complete oxymoronity, right? By the sound of it, by the time we're done with Perl 6, we'll have a major competitor to the .NET platform itself, even more so than Java is a competitor. Or are we thinking of a merge? Or are we thinking on a totally separate line that just has a few similarities? Everyone else: Comments? David T. Grove [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: .NET
am seeing some similarities between some of the proposed goals of Perl 6 and the .NET platform. . . . many things in .NET have been discussed similarly here. That's because .NET attempts to address real-world issues. The goals of .NET are not evil in and of themselves, you know. Depends on whether you believe MS marketing. Once you dig through all the manure, you end up with some pretty basic concepts -- a new COM, the realization that C++ cause problems with mixed languages, and Microsoft's desperation to do something remotely interesting for a change (still waiting for something original for a change).
RE: .NET
-Original Message- From: Jarkko Hietaniemi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 5:26 PM To: David Grove Cc: Perl 6 Language Mailing List Subject: Re: .NET (still waiting for something original for a change). You are saying that the Clippy wasn't originally and truly annoying? :-) Something worthwhile and interesting? A benefit to mankind? ummm, Something that IBM or the Sun corporation would want to steal?
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
Given that Perl 5 internals post 5.004 caused the need for a rewrite anyway, I'd imagine that this would be a particularly horrid idea. The Perl 5 path is almost dead: adventurers and Win32 users are the vast majority using it at all. Add Solaris 8 1/01 to the list of OS's that have completely rejected 5.6, as I discovered last night, and I'd imagine that there are more. Let Perl 5 die with the corporate interests. The rest of the world, however, needs a migration path of some type, if indeed "perl for the people by the people" is actually ever going to be a reality rather than a marketing scheme. Perl 6 represents more than technological playtime for language designers, guys and gals. It also represents a long-needed social and political reform, should any of that be accepted by Larry and left in peace by the corporate interests now in firm control of Perl 5. John Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dan Sugalski wrote: I personally would rather that perl 6 handle perl 6 code only, and leave the compilation and interpretation of perl 5 code to perl 5. FWIW, I agree 100% with Dan. -- John Porter
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
John Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
David Whipp wrote:
A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to
program
in than some that do.
The obvious reply is: "There's more than one way to do it"
To which the obvious reply is:
'Although the Perl Slogan is "There's More Than One Way
to Do It", I hesitate to make 10 ways to do something.'
- Larry Wall
IOW, simply to have AWTDI is one of the worst reasons to add a
feature. If it doesn't make the language *better*, LEAVE IT OUT.
Does your "A" stand for "A" or "Another"? If "Another", then this may have
some merit. If "A" then it is a horrible misapplication of a good quote
and a dangerous excuse for myopia (regardless of the topic or thread,
which I haven't followed so don't defend it to me).
I'm sure you don't want to write "$a = new Integer '32'".
Of course. That would be unbearably absurd.
But how often do you have to write expressions that
operate on three or more URLs? Or even two?
How many perl instrinsics return URLs? How many
perl intrinsics operate on URLs in any way?
So are we to the point of making LWP a built-in?
I hope not.
Two points come to mind.
The first is that many programmers "born" after 1990 tend to think of OOP
as THE way of programming, or the natural end of programming evolution;
whereas many born before that time think of it as simply another way
(sometimes better, sometimes an unsurmountable hassle) of looking at or
applying data and functionality. Programmers of "functional languages"
used to think that theirs was the final step in prorgramming evolution
until OOP came along. Punchcard programmers thought that COBOL was "where
it's at". OOP programmers will get a stiff clue as programming evolves
even further.
I think that one of Perl's major benefits is that it doesn't have a
dependence upon one particular methodology, as does Java, C#, Python,
Ruby, and other new languages. When the next paradigm comes along, those
languages will have their "old fogeys" just like COBOL... some have tried
and failed to bring that back into the mainstream by making it OOP. Perl,
C, and a few others have the ability to rebound from this, and evolve into
the next generation without overhauling the base language. The OOP-only
languages will cease to evolve, according to a historical perspective of
what languages have evolved to become successful over the long term,
because they can only change by blowing up every program ever written in
that language.
(If you want an opinion on what the next step in evolution might be, I'd
say it would be from OOP to terse; or from verbose to perlishly
quick-and-dirty... having the ability of going for small scripts [not
suitable for OOP languages] as well as for large applications [not well
suited to functional-only or linear languages]... meaning I see Perl
itself as a foreshadow of the next generation.)
If "features" like this were optional for clarity for people who needed to
see OOP for the sake of OOP, no problem. But I'd caution anyone who wanted
to take away Perl's flexibility to evolve. I'd also caution that forcing
this level of verbosity on a Perl programmer is a good way of turning
him/her back to C or off to Python. Besides, this is programmer-level hard
typing, and something that we've learned through experience is an
overrated concept.
(I'm agreeing with John, but giving a reason for it.)
The second point is that, John, you forget that Rebol actually did have
some degree of kewlness to it (before it went commercial), with its basic
datatypes of HTTP, FTP, MAIL, and the like. I'm not saying we should go
that far, since OOP can simulate this for us, but only that it did have
some kewlness of its own. Base data types don't have to be limited to
strings and numbers... that would be tantamount to C's asciiz being
considered a true string with real strings being "unnecessary". It doesn't
matter to me that these become intrinsic... that's not the purpose of this
post. It does matter that we keep our optinos open and look at Perl6
objectively ("as opposed to subjectively", not "as opposed to
functionally").
p
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
I tried to comment on "apocalypse" in Larry's most likely sense, but there was a mail flub (now corrected). Apocalypse is a greek word meaning that which comes out from (apo- eq away from) hiding, i.e., revelation. In the biblical sense, it refers to revealing that which was previously unseen or unheard, hidden behind a veil of worlds or time, as John used it. In social english, it refers to "the time of tribulation", which is not precisely relevant, not precisely biblical, but it's good to make sure that it's not interpreted in this way, since it is not Larry's intention to declare these things as "the last and final" or as something horrible and trying. I assumed that Larry's use was more of "reading the book and letting the ideas flow out, from their hiding place between the lines, in a natural order", i.e., "ordered brainstorming", for a loosely translated oxymoron. Anyway, you were wondering about Larry's choice of words. I just thought it was neat and wanted to share. I like like Larry's linguistic plays on words. As a linguist (philologist) myself, they usually make sense to me, and he tends to pop in little jokes to see who's paying attention. I can see those linguist influences in Perl too, and that's one important thing that likely attracted me to Perl in the first place. I just hope that Larry and the Perl 6 designers don't lose this, and don't forget to have "fun" with the language while designing it (just not in the makefiles... xcopy /f /r /i /e /d indeed). p Nathan Torkington [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not a comment at all on it? Was I accidentally unsubscribed to perl6-language? *tap* *tap* is this thing on? Nat
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
Simon Cozens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 11:42:23AM +, David Grove wrote: Apocalypse is a greek word meaning that which comes out from (apo- eq away from) hiding, i.e., revelation. In the biblical sense, it refers to revealing that which was previously unseen or unheard, hidden behind a veil of worlds or time, as John used it. Urgh. I'm not letting that go without a pedant point. :) apokalupsis is the ordinary NT Greek word for revealing or uncovering.[1] John only uses it the once, in the title of his book. Okay, so I have a flair for the melodramatic[1]. You already knew that. ;-) Kalupsw IIRC is to hide something (the koine phrase that comes to mind is "hiding the light under the basket"). Apokalupsw is to bring it out of hiding. What struck me as interesting though was that Larry was referring to something that apparently was alredy there, between the lines, and just needed clarification. (Revealing and creating are different things.) I know that's a bit isogetical, but it works for me. It's a bit like Michelangelo's statement that he didn't carve his statues, he just freed them from the rock they were embedded in. p [1] Strongs is pure Koine. I'd think Larry would be more of the Ionic type. g
Re: Perl culture, perl readabillity
OK, before this *completely* heads into the direction of advocacy, which it's dangerous close to anyway, you need to qualify that. Uh, have you followed this thread? It's nothing but another perlbashing session by a verbosity monger who can't handle $.
RE: Perl culture, perl readabillity
"David Grove" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "Helton, Brandon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Please CC Otto in all replies concerning this topic. I want to make sure he reads how wrong he is about Perl and its readability and I think Simon sums it up perfectly here. Give the braindead no head, Brandon. I've recently come across something HEED. Heed heed heed, not head. Of course, give them no head either... blush p
Re: Warnings, strict, and CPAN (Re: Closures and default lexical-scope for subs)
Bart Lateur [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:32:50 -0500 (EST), Sam Tregar wrote:
On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Bart Lateur wrote:
Actually, it's pretty common. Only, most languages are not as
forgiving
as perl, and what is merely a warning in Perl, is a fatal error in
those
languages.
Examples? I know you're not talking about C or C++.
Visual Basic, for one, or any other BASIC in history. It looks like a
compiled vs. interpreted thing. C doesn't do any runtime error
checking,
because of speed reasons. There's no array bounds checking. You can use
a null pointer when copying a string, which results in an untrappable
program error ;-). Virtually all interpeted languages, where safety
reigns over speed, do all of those. Anything out of the ordinary is a
fatal error.
Ah... point of order:
C doesn't do these checks because it expects you to do so; not because of
language limitations, but because of language level (i.e. "low"... one
step above assembler). VisualBasic actually does surprisingly little,
though it (and Delphi/Pascal) does a bit more than C: otherwise you
wouldn't need an On Error Goto Label in every other function to avoid one
of those hopelessly meaningless MicroSoft-style errors popping up for no
better reason (your code is still good) than that MS is not capable of
providing good libs despite their horriffic overbloat.
Perl was designed to be non-annoying, not inherently correct. A mistake is
still a mistake, just far less likely to totally crash the program (and
the operating system). Actually, in many places, it was designed to make
decent assumptions. This is what's scaring me about all this talk about
exceptions... it can break this mold and make Perl into a "complainer
language" belching up uncaught (don't care) exceptions forcing try/except
blocks around every piece of IO or DB handling. The style
try {
open(FOO, "./foo");
}
catch FileOpenException $e {
die "Drat:" .$e-Message. "\n";
}
is horrifying to me over the normal
open(FOO, "./foo") or die "Drat:$!\n";
The first is just plain unnatural. Geez, it's outright Pythonic (or
Javanic). I'll take (C++):
if((f=open("./foo","r"))==NULL) { ... exit(1); }
over
try {
f = new MyFileClass(f, "./foo", "r");
}
catch ExFileOpenError e {
... exit(1);
}
catch ExFileExistError e {
... exit(1);
}
catch ExFilePermissionError e {
... exit(1);
}
catch ExOpSysError e {
... exit(1);
}
catch ExBadDesignError e {
... exit(1);
}
catch ExMeaninglessError e {
... exit(1);
}
anyday. This doesn't "get error checking out of your way" it shoves it in
your face.
FWIW Perl doesn't do bounds checking because it assumes that if you go out
of bounds then you want to go out of bounds and it creates new bounds. Or
at least that's how I see it. That's not so subtle a difference. The
languages that I've seen do this follow Perl's lead (not the other way
around), and those are very few from what I've seen.
One of my longstanding points of advocacy for Perl has been "I learned
more from perl by experimenting than by reading: no matter what I threw at
Perl, it almost always did it right anyway. I made up bits and pieces of
grammar as I went along." Try that with another interpreted language.
Please don't ascribe angelicity to VB. It's just a bad toy language behind
a wizard gui. It may do bounds checking, but makes up for that by erroring
out at runtime at the stupidest places imaginable and giving no clue
what's wrong without an entire string of GOTO's, and even then it's
doubtful you'll get an error message worth the CPU cycles to display.
p
Re: The binding of my (Re: Closures and default lexical-scope
Nick, make a decision. As for myself, I won't sit back and watch this. yaphet jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: despite all "cyber" appearances to the contrary, i'm one of you - but who? I've been looking back through my archives trying to figure out who you are. You are certainly not someone I recognize, and from the crap that's coming from you I'm sure I'd recognize your smell pretty quickly. Other than a basic personality disorder, what precisely is your issue? i thought that we assume our users are *lazy* - perl creates meaningless compiler spoon-feeding work for the programmer that smarter languages avoid. some languages - most notably java and the 'c' family create even more useless work (what's your guess, 2x-10x when compared to perl?!). This has been asked so many times that few of us care anymore. We simply recognize the benefits of a language that expresses thoughts as a whole than as microscopic pieces of a whole. add on the irredeemably ugly and cryptic syntax (you need to be smart...) Python isn't ugly? Heck, it isn't even complete. Its blocks just dangle out there and end wherever you forget to tell it you're ending. Ugly is a matter of perspective. so i agree 100%. perl programmers are often the most intrinsically bright stars shining in the programming universe - if not, they couldn't use perl! the world desperately needs *more* programmers, if for no other reason to rewrite, replace, or maintain the perl code that's polluting cyberspace! Precisely what type of programmer? The programmer who's had a semester of VB and think's he's a systems architect? The programmer who comes into this or that group insisting that we do his work for him, he just needs a quick answer and he doesn't want to read the book... that kind? Or are we talking about the fanatical Python programmer who thinks that the absence of curly braces makes for maintainable code? I'm trying desperately to figure out who you represent. Whoever it is, it isn't the voice of the Perl community. perl is *not* the answer. it was for a time, but no more: it's the wrong way. There is no one way. There is no "one vendor solution", despite MicroSoft FUD. There is no universal correct language or method for doing anything. Any given task is more or less suited to this or that language, and this is even extremely subjective. Within a language, there is usually more than one way to perform a task... otherwise we're robots, easily automated, and dispensable. That's not to say it's offensively smart, either. :) but it is offensive...and it's damaging the progressive improvement in the application of computer programming (scripting, if you will...) to business. I applied Perl and Linux to our VB/Win32-based business and cut 75% off of our IT budget. What moronic logic are you using? sometimes organisms evolve into supremacy over their ecological niche, just to find that their niche evolves into irrelevance or is replaced entirely. Hopefully the fate of the Perl 5 Porters culture. Again, this is a target of the Perl 6 reforms. I would point out to you that, over the past few months, I've noticed this snobbery gaining more and more ground within the Python community. Some months ago I commended them in comp.lang.python on their attitude. Recently, however, I should be retracting this and seeking absolution for the lack of insight. They're now worse than I've seen an any Perl forum outside of the P5P. p
Re: The binding of my (Re: Closures and default lexical-scope
yaphet jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: this is completely false when applied to real programming languages. Please disclose what language you represent. = example 1: php = relatively easy to learn . retains basic perl syntax . less cryptic (but more verbose) . tight integration to databases (mySQL) = relatively easy to master = now the world's #1 scripting language for dynamic web content ;-) I'm afraid your facts are off. Three points belong here: 1) PHP is a cheap rip-off of Perl. It started out as a Perl module and tangented into delusions of grandeur. 2) PHP is not a language. It is a web scripting tool. Outside the web, is does nothing. It was able to simplify some of its grammar specifically because it doesn't need to deal with anything more than web pages. 3) Your statistics are off by a majority percent. Studies are still showing that websites using Perl still outnumber other languages combined. I know programmers who refuse to do business who write PHP or ASP websites, taking that as an indication of a lack of professional "clue" and quality. As for the ASP part, I would agree, but from experience with those businesses rather than predisposed bias against the language. = example 2: ruby = relatively easy to learn . simple, elegant syntax . less cryptic without verbosity . adds perl's regular expressions . exploits other languages (c, java, perl...) . in-line modules . tight integration with c = relatively easy to master = now more popular than python in its native japan = now in us and europe - where it will displace perl and python... ;-) Ruby is vastly considered an infant language. You are obviously a Win32 programmer who knows little about Ruby's native platform, and how it's treated there. Ruby was a fascination for a while, but lost it instantly when I found that it had no capability of arbitrarily nested data structures, which are invaluable to my programming. p
Re: The binding of my (Re: Closures and default lexical-scope
yaphet jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Feeding the troll: careful with the troll talk: remember, your god's favorite book is the "lord of the rings"...chock full of trolls...and hobbits, too! = example 2: ruby = now more popular than python in its native japan Python isn't native to Japan. obviously, nitwit...ruby is the language that's native to japan. Hey, Simon. Can I call you a "nitwit" when I feel like being a clueless moron? ;-) Yaphet: So it's Ruby is it? Hmmmph. I would have expected more dignity, and certainly more of a clue, from a Ruby advocate. Had me stumped for a while, I thought you were pythonic there for a bit. Honestly, when Ruby matures, it might just give us a run for our money. For now it remains a useful experiment with some good examples of object programming for us to take not of as we improve our own OOP grammar. It has my respect. @butThis @@isRidiculous. p
Re: It's Funny. Laugh. (was Re: The binding of my (Re: Closures and default lexical-scope)
[subject]: "It's funny. Laugh." I know. I was having fun. We haven't had a lurktrollmuffin in here before and it was a good diversion from the drollery of waiting... 'Sides, I happen to _like_ defending Perl from nonsensicals, especially particularly abusive ones. Simon Cozens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Feb 18, 2001 at 02:01:55AM -0800, yaphet jones wrote: gentlemen - gomen nasai! dou itashimashite. I have to be honest, it's not very often I'm called a dimwit. Certainly not twice. Actually, I didn't. I was laughing at it. Read that again. Although I ordinarily avoid any semblance of hero worship in Perl, I'll have to say I felt a certain bit of protectiveness for one of our best contributors. Realizing you can take care of yourself, I showed indignation only by making fun of the preposterosity. ;-) I also know you well enough to realize that you would know where Ruby was from (and saw your humorous redirection there), and it was revealing to see that he didn't know this. It showed me that he probably had only one purpose here. But there is a deeper problem! People appear to be losing their sense of satire; this is terrible! Soon we might end up taking ourselves too seriously, and then where would we be? Maybe tomorrow you can write this in the past perfect. P5 hasn't had it since .005. P6 will probably get there, but maybe together we can all delay it as long as possible. (from http://www.ntk.net/) sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering The perl5-porters and their monkish acolytes huddle around camp fires at the base of Mount Imparseable, where Larry convenes with the spirit of The More Than One Way. If absolute peace is maintained, he will soon return with the Three-Hundred-And-Sixty-One Tablets of Perl 6. But as they wait, Is that number arbitrarily chosen? in the pre-dawn East the sickly glow of RUBY grows stronger. Yes, Naw, Ruby doesn't concern me. It has some fascinating concepts, like... Ruby, the language that says it's like Smalltalk (but is really cleaner Perlish syntax with better-than-Python-OOP and Satherish iteration) has traditionally been trapped in Japan by the Great that iteration, but any new language has some growing to do. Python is the one that scares me. It has very little benefit over Perl, but its momentum still amazes me. It's very visibly superficial though. Font Divide, unable to vex its Western ancestor. But no more. The rods are cast in twain; Addison-Wesley have a book out. They've open sourced the reference section, and Dr. Dobbs, that gullible old gatekeeper, has even written a tutorial in January's issue. Larry is wise, and strong. But remember how his one regret was he didn't get to a Christian missionary? Guess what Ruby's creator used to be? A missionary in Hiroshima, Larry. In Hiroshima. Did Larry ever say WHY he was learning Japanese? Of course, as a linguist myself, I realize that there doesn't have to BE a reason, but I figure it might have something to do with either unicode or hiroshiman monkery. ;-) p
Re: The binding of my (Re: Closures and default lexical-scope
yaphet jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Johan Vromans [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As someone else said before me, Perl should not be changed Just Because We Can. Aspects which have proven usefulness and are deeply engrained in the Perl mindset should not be tampered with just because some recent convert finds them un-Algol-like. yet another _example_ of perl's "expert vs. newbie" snobbery. the "perl mindset": it's what's now driving perl toward the unix programming language "dustbin"...by driving "newbies" away. This was a feature of Perl 5, and I have been and remain one of its most vocal antagonists. However, I have noted a particular absence of it in Perl 6 so far. "Social Reform" has been discussed as an important goal of the next generation of this language, as important in the view of some, myself included, as any enhancements in the language itself. the tchrist (christiansen) said it best, when he described perl5: ...an "expert-friendly" language... Tom is, from what I have been told, universally recognized as the epitome of Perl snobbery. However, he doesn't limit his constipated moanings to Perl: he seems to think that only people doing his work on his OS on his platform on his machine with his keyboard is a moron. His attitude and behavior has long been the butt of both jokes and scorn. However, his should not be taken as a generalized example posture and attitude of the community. Perhaps you should be addressing the Perl 5 Porters instead. p
Re: Closures and default lexical-scope for subs
Dan Sugalski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 04:38 PM 2/15/2001 -0300, Branden wrote: Yeah. Beginners. I was one too. And I remember always falling on these... But that's OK, since we probably don't want any new Perl programmers... I've skipped pretty much all this thread so far, but I do need to point out that perl isn't targeted at beginning programmers, or beginning perl programmers. It's targeted at experienced programmers. If you learn a language you're a beginner once, and for a little while, but you end up experienced for a much longer time. eloquent... clever... clear... true... clap clap clap Perl has lots of stuff that'll trip up beginners. That's OK. People are clever, and they can learn. The same things can be said for any language. Even VB (it takes a while to get used to the bugs). However, many of the things that trip up beginners in other languages, including VB, aren't present in Perl. One of Perl's primary beauties IMO is that it is appropriate to all levels of programmer. Most other languages have a few bell shapes in their learning curve, with the largest at the front. Perl seems to be a steady incline with a teensy little tea bell at the front, which comprises mostly of the most important less of all -- common to all languages -- the grand principle of RTFM. Other than that, once you get past the "modem noise" shock, it's all basic programming theory (if, unless, while, do, sub). My hope for Perl 6 is that it doesn't break that with non-optional fluff. p
Re: RFC on Coexistance and simulaneous use of multiple module version s?
Steve Simmons [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul Johnson wrote: Has anyone considered the problems associated with XS code, or whatever its replacement is? Pardon my ignorance, but what's XS code? Simply put (and paraphrastically, so don't nitpick, anyone), XS is using a funky type of C used to code Perl back ends. You end up with compiled modules in .DLL (Win32) or .so (Linux/etc) format. XS is used to supply Perl with functionality that it currently doesn't have, such as connecting with a C-based library, or to do something faster in compiled code than you could do in Perl code (which latter use is becoming more and more irrelevant on faster and faster machines). p
Re: Why shouldn't sleep(0.5) DWIM?
John Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Simon Cozens wrote: John Porter wrote: But you need to remember it anyway, so remembering it for time() is no added burden. Uhm. NO! Remembering that $x+1 things have changed is an "added burden" over remembering that $x things have changed. Not as x approaches infinity. I'm responding to the argument that, when perl6 has hit the streets, a perl programmer should not have to remember whether she's programming in perl6 or perl5. Since that is an impossibility, using it as an argument to support not changing feature Y doesn't work. "Perl should remain Perl" (once known as RFC 0) is bogus If you want things that *aren't* Perl, you know exactly where to find them. RFC 0 continues to be bogus, despite its repetition. Perl6 will be Perl, even though it won't be Perl5. It will be a different language, yet it will still be Perl. Correct. However, the lack of that argument doesn't mean that we should arbitrarily slaughter the language. Keeping the time() function the time() function _if_possible_ while perhaps adding a millitime() function from a library or perl kernel whatsis or however it's added. Our hope is to minimize the incompatibilities, not create them because we decide that a function should suddenly do something totally other than it currently does just because. Please knock it off with the "Keep Perl Perl" non-argument. Non sequitur. Perl 5 and Perl 6 will be different because we can't, not because we don't wanna. Otherwise, we no longer have perl, but lrep. Making changes that slaughter existing code just because we can is a decidedly Microsoftish thing to do, and that makes me feel all ooogie. (Anybody know what database engine we're supposed to use right now?) p
Re: JWZ on s/Java/Perl/
Jarkko Hietaniemi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The desire to know the name of the runtime platform is a misdirected
desire.
What you really want to know is whether function Foo will be there,
what
kind of signature it has, whether file Bar will be there, what kind of
format it has, and so on, whether a feature Zog is present, or what
is the value of parameter Blah. Just knowing the name of the platform
doesn't buy you a whole lot.
It's not limited to perl functionality. I need to know what version of
which can be assumed to be there, and which api are available. Knowing the
operating system type (generic) and version (specific) are both helpful
for purposes apart from knowing what perl functions are available. In
fact, for the latter purpose, I have only used this functionality a couple
of times, whereas the former are in a large number of my programs.
Also, I find $^O quite helpful as "MSWin32" simply to find out whether or
not it's a UN*X operating system. I need to run shell calls or what not
depending on that generic platform. Although I often care what specific
version of Win32 I have (and what my running linux kernel version is),
that need I find to be much rarer.
if($^O eq "MSWin32"){
`notepad c:\temp\foo$num.txt`
}
else {
if(-x $ENV{EDITOR}){
`$ENV{EDITOR} /tmp/foo$name.txt`
}
else {
`vi /tmp/foo$name.txt`
}
}
Obtaining the platform name quickly and easily buys quite a bit, is quick,
and is hugely important to streamlined code. Knowing the version is, to
me, rarer and not as important (not to insinuate that it isn't important
to some).
p
Re: [FWP] sorting text in human-order
I have an idea. Send that japanese to Larry and have him translate it. However he translates it, it's official. p Jeff Okamoto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Jan 05, 2001 at 09:42:12PM -0500, Brian Finney wrote: say we start with this number 123,456,789 one hundred twenty-three million four hundred fifty-six thousand seven hundred eighty-nine satakaksikymmentäkolme miljoonaa neljäsataaviisikymmentäkuusi tuhatta seitsemänsataakahdeksankymmentäyhdeksän. Or 1,2345,6789 ichi oku ni-sen sambyaku yon-ju go man roku sen nana hyaku hachi-ju kyu. or one one-hundred-million, two thousand three hundred forty-five ten-thousand, six thousand seven hundred eighty nine. Why are we trying to teach a computer language about natural languages? Jeff
Re: [FWP] sorting text in human-order
"Bryan C. Warnock" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2001, Piers Cawley wrote:
But, but... 0.21 is *not* 'point twenty one', it's 'point two one',
otherwise you get into weirdness with: .21 and .210 being spoken as
'point twenty one' and 'point two hundred (?:and)? ten' and all of a
sudden the '2' in that figure has gained an order of magnitude which
is just plain *wrong*.
Then it would be "one eight zero zero point two one."
Yes, at least the U.S. used to teach that the gratuitous use of "and"
was
wrong - "one thousand eight hundred twenty-one," but the rules have
been
loosened for integer numbers.
Are you guys nuts or just bored?
Ok, let's be pedantic.
The one thing that I learned in high school speech class was that, if you
say it, and people understand you, it's correct. It may not be proper, but
it's correct, because it serves its purpose.
The discussion was about the word "ain't". However, I think it applies.
In proper American English, to be gramatically correct, there is no "and"
in $109.00 ("One hundred nine dollars"). We usually say "One hundred and
nine dollars", however, when speaking, especially in the south and
midwest. Since internet communication is more typed speech than written
messages, it could be seen as either/or. In British English, the and is
normally used for a decimal point for money except in Britain itself
(colonies have different currency... I've yet to know what a quid is in
England), ommitted for real numbers otherwise. In german and other
languages, however, and ("und") is used quite frequently, and left out for
the cents (DM129.09 "Ein hundert neun und zwanzig Mark neun"). 0.005 is
either "zero point zero zero 5" in American English, or "five one
thousandths", with the former normally substituting "oh" (which is
incorrect since "oh" is a letter not a number) and the latter is falling
out of use.
FWIW, I pronounce 5.6.0 as "five six oh" and "command.com" as "command
com" and "autoexec.bat" as "autoexec bat" and every other file name I
pronounce the "dot". (I pronounced 5.005_03 as "five double-aught five oh
three".)
The point is, if people understand you, you said it in one of possibly
several "correct" ways. If people look at you funny, you need some
adjustment.
p's $0.02
p
Re: What will the Perl6 code name be? (again)
Tad McClellan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry to mention the code name thing again, I thought the whole endeavor rather silly. But I just stumbled upon the dictionary definition below, so I submit it for due (mis)consideration: pearly everlasting: n. A rhizomatous plant (Anaphalis margaritacea) with long-lasting whitish flower heads. Seems applicable: Has the phonetic equivalent thing going. Perl 6 is to be "the last Perl". And we could claim to drink margaritas instead of coffee/cola/Jolt. I suggest we refrain from doing anything with that "phalis" part though... Hmm ana: no, not having, none, anti phalis: ...
RE: RFC 359 (v1) Improvement needed in error messages (both internal errors and die function).
On Sunday, October 01, 2000 1:37 AM, Perl6 RFC Librarian [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: This and other RFCs are available on the web at http://dev.perl.org/rfc/ =head1 TITLE Improvement needed in error messages (both internal errors and die function). Feel free to put anything you like between the " and the ". It's up to the programmer to provide meaningful error messages, not the language itself. As for the error messages themselves that get placed into $! and its kin, I will say as a person who is forced to use M$ Access and M$ VB for a to make a living (temporarily), that these errors by themselves (the internal error messages within perl itself) are extremely informative. The M$ products give almost no helpful error message at any time, making debugging nearly impossible, and compared to Delphi and many C++ compilers, tends to correctly identify the root of the problem rather than sending you on a wild goose chase when you leave out a semicolon. Feel free to use statements like open(F, "$file") || die "FILE ERROR: $!\n"; if you like, but leave the mechanism simple. Otherwise you interfere with people who DO use this type of structure to identify to the user the source of the error (internal or external, i.e., my fault or their own stupid fault), or whether it's an ERROR: or a WARNING: or if I'm going to ABORT:.
RE: RFC 360 (v1) Allow multiply matched groups in regexes to return a listref of all matches
On Sunday, October 01, 2000 1:38 AM, Perl6 RFC Librarian
[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
This and other RFCs are available on the web at
http://dev.perl.org/rfc/
=head1 TITLE
Allow multiply matched groups in regexes to return a listref of all matches
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: Kevin Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 30 Sep 2000
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 360
Version: 1
Status: Developing
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Since the October 1 RFC deadline is nigh, this will be pretty informal.
Suppose you want to parse text with looks like:
name: John Abajace
children: Tom, Dick, Harry
favorite colors: red, green, blue
name: I. J. Reilly
children: Jane, Gertrude
favorite colors: black, white
...
Currently, this takes two passes:
while ($text =~ /name:\s*(.*?)\n\s*
children:\s*(.*?)\n\s*
favorite\ colors:\s*(.*?)\n/sigx) {
# now second pass for $2 ( = "Tom, Dick, Harry") and $3, yielding
# list of children and favorite colors
}
If we introduce a new construction, (?@ ... ), which means "spit out a
list ref of all matches, not just the last match", then this could be
done in one pass:
while ($text =~ /name:\s*(.*?)\n\s*
children:\s*(?:(?@\S+)[, ]*)*\n\s*
favorite\ colors:\s*(?:(?@\S+)[, ]*)*\n/sigx) {
# now we have:
# $1 = "John Abajace";
# $2 = ["Tom", "Dick", "Harry"]
# $3 = ["red", "green", "blue"]
}
Although the above example is contrived, I have very often felt the need
for this feature in real-world projects.
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
Unknown.
=head1 REFERENCES
None.
--
for help to unsubscribe, etcetera, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
more information at http://dev.perl.org/ and http://dev.perl.org/lists
Definitely. I think this has been one of the few actual "flaws" in the
language. People are always trying to
($part1, $somevar) =~ s/(.*):(.*)/;
This would be in list context. In scalar context, it could still grab the
number of patterns matched in the parenths, or a 1|0 to indicate a match at
all, which would be less useful. Since it's a common error (I believe it's even
FAQed a few times), the request goes well beyond a request for syntactic sugar,
and points out a flaw in the language. People expect it to be there as a part
of what makes Perl make sense.
RE: Cya dudes
I'm afraid I had a family crisis yesterday, else another RFC would have been submitted. Part of Perl's problems, a severe internal problem that has external (user side) consequences, is that Perl does *not* have anyone to speak policy with, while the community itself is submerged in issues of politics, qliques, takeovers, monopolists, corruption, collusion, and ulterior motives. The P5P, an extremely elitist group, composed of the highest "ranking" members of the perl community, refuses to take responsibility for issues of a serious political nature, and in fact takes the word of members of subcommunites, members who's rank is not Tom and whose computer is not Tom's, as FUD and unimportant, like a gnat on a warthog's ass. It is my most sincere hope that part of Larry's "sweeping changes" that is to include the revamping of the P5P itself addresses these issues, and continues to provide a way for the community to have a voice throughout the P6 development process and into the future. The Perl-KGB-elite has got to go, and a free republic must replace it. If perl "high ranks" cannot deal with issues involving such serious problems, and if no means of giving users a continual direct voice is put into place, the perl community as a whole would be negligent and irresponsible unto themselves not to go for a mass exodous to Python, C++, and Java, the three obvious next-bests without the political red tape and "taxation without representation" (in the form of moving toward a commercialized Perl). I share this guy's sentiments perfectly. The perl community has no voice. The P5P have shown no interest in moving perl to higher ground, or in defending this community against invasion, corruption, and commercialization against known and confessed monopolists; but _have_ shown an interest in demonstrating unfailing devotion to those who have sold us out to the devil, regardless of the consequences, rather than listening to both sides (especially in issues involving the corruption of the perl language internals) and making a decision wether implementing or not implementing changes that lend to corporate monopolization efforts and have no beneficial effects on the perl language or have immediate damaging effects on huge parts of its internals. That the little guy has had historically, and predictably will in the future have, no voice in fighting this corruption and collusion is among the primary problems with the Perl language, and poses to undermine the foundation of the language forever. On Friday, September 29, 2000 4:19 AM, Simon Cozens [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 09:39:20AM +0100, Simon Cozens wrote: On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 02:34:55AM +, Ed Mills wrote: I tried to contribute on this list bu [You know, I think something went wrong there. Let's try again.] The RFC process gets you a hotline to Larry on an equal footing with all the other RFC authors. What more of a voice did you want? Sure, people play at politics; ignore them, they're not important. While people play at politics, that *by no means* implies that Perl does. -- The debate rages on: Is Perl Bachtrian or Dromedary?
Undermining the Perl Language
On Sunday, October 01, 2000 4:02 PM, Jean-Louis Leroy [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: The Perl-KGB-elite has got to go, and a free republic must replace it. I wouldn't go as far as your entire post, neither in form nor content, but I do have concerns about the sociopsycho(patho)logy of the Perl community. Actually, I put it that way specifically to ruffle just the right feathers, in the hope that Larry might pick up on it. My apologies to the non-Perl-KGB-elite. I'm not known for tact. On a different, yet related issue: had there been a perl6-sociology list, I would have submitted the following: All newbies are not necessarily 'clueless newbies' That's a different but related issue. I was primarily addressing the issue of the P5P allowing the language to be controlled by corporate presence through a purchased pumking, and not taking responsibility for the language sufficient to protect it against corruption (technical and political), and choosing rather to follow the man rather than look where they're going. I've no idea why Sarathy was deposed, but I have a pretty big suspicion. The problem is, I love Sarathy too. He's a hero, now with a tarnished reputation, not necessarily solely because but definitely partially because, of a poor choice in employers. But I can't support the decisions that Sarathy made and why he made them. In order to address problems like "the premature release of Perl 5.6 when it wasn't nearly ready just to satisfy a Microsoft deadline", either a/the porters group needs to understand that they need to concentrate on the road and not on the leader, or we need a group that is capable or willing to do so. As for the "everybody but me is an idiot" mentality, I believe that is one of the main reasons that PHP and Python are gaining so much ground. In public fora, nobody cares if you use mIRC (example 1 of many). In #perl on efnet, unless you use BitchX on Solaris or something, you're an idiot, and can be banned for just using mIRC (which is why years ago I migrated to Pirch and now only go in under Linux). The elitist mentality is two-fold then. It affects both the core language, and the community. It harms the language by allowing its corruption, and destroys open support and advocacy. Do we still have time to make an RFC of some sort? And, if so, how could it be phrased? I would prefer (due specifically to my lack of tact) to have someone else write it, but I do have information that this person would need. I think that the P6 version of the P5P should be matched with a body to govern the politics of the language, whose members are elected and whose members may not be employees of known or confessed monopolists (or, more realistically, have no profit motive). If the monopolists want a voice in the politics, they should go through objective representatives, and not buy up the most influential porters to take control. Perl 6 is supposed to be made by and for the community. It can't satisfy that requirement and exist under the same oppression (or, minimally, negligence) that Perl 5 did. At what point in Perl5's history did it become politically (socially) incorrect to dislike Microsoft, and attempt to steer away from them and their allies, and other companies who use similar tactics to Microsoft's to take over? IIRC, it was July of 1998, when I erroneously coined the phrase "great perl merge", and Sarathy found a new job. Something's gotta budge. I do not want to pay for the privilege of using a free language, and the "elite" need a damn good spaking to learn some manners to newbies (for at least the sake of advocacy) and people who don't use their own OS/Computer/Platform. Python is nice (though a bit overcooked)? Perl is rude. Can't we all just get along? The little guy has to have a voice, or the big guys will stick it to them in the end. I've changed the subject, since we've tangented far enough to make a new one. We have actual issues other than a single person's little snit.
RE: Undermining the Perl Language
*All* communities have this. It's the nature of people. Pretending it might be otherwise is to paint a rather pleasant utopian fantasy that, unfortunately, can't exist. (At least not one that has people in it) It's one of the common failings of people involved in open source projects. Assuming that somehow people will magically be other than people is the fastest way for the perl 6 community to self-destruct. The fantasy is believing that it can't exist without even trying, sir. Or, at least, it's equally fantastic. The shame is that we lazily accept the fantasy that takes less effort to achieve... the one that takes no effort. This does point out the biggest issue the community has at the moment--there aren't enough calm, mature, rational folks weighing in to keep things as level as we might want. I'm not sure what to do about that, since it's both a tiring and thankless endeavor that tends to burn people out. Decisions that are acceptable to the general public and not just compromise between public and commerce are seldom if ever determined in committee. We have hundreds of years of political history to demonstrate that. This country (apologies to non-US citizens) was not founded on committee action, but on rebellion. Only a few citizens of this country know the names of the constitutional congress, but _most_ recognize the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. What is the first amendment? Who is the first person to sign the document? (This is an example, not a trivia quiz.) Until this language is out of danger from corporate entities trying to destroy it or take it over, or at least until the powers that _could_, actually _do_, there must be a voice crying "foul!". I love this language, and will do what I can to protect it. Right now, that means getting the attention of the people who could help the situation, and getting that in such a way that they cannot _but_ act appropriately toward the protection of this language. To comply with the wishes of the listmaster, please move this thread to perl6-meta.
RE: RFC 263 (v1) Add null() keyword and fundamental data type
On Wednesday, September 27, 2000 4:17 AM, Tom Christiansen [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: This is screaming mad. I will become perl6's greatest detractor and anti-campaigner if this nullcrap happens. And I will never shut up about it, either. Mark my words. Quote from Larry: "I have a particular distaste for the sort of argument that goes, 'If I can't have it my way, I'm going to take all my marbles and go home.' That's not an argument--that's nuclear blackmail. I'm the only one who's allowed to make that sort argument, and you'll never hear me making it." On the other hand, I have to agree with the core sentiments. All this talk about nulls and strong types and everything-is-an-object is frankly scaring the willies out of me. Maybe perl does need a revamp, but it should still stay perl. I'm a perl programmer, not a Visual PerlBOLthonajaffellispQL++ robot. Perl has always stood on these: There is more than one way to do it. (Public/private OOP?) No arbitrary limits. (Everything is an object? Exceptions getting in the way of open(FILE,"file") or die "$!\n"? Hard typing?) We're very proud of our language that doesn't force us to put an if before or after a statement, and doesn't care whether we indent one tab per block level, and doesn't belch out exceptions at us if we forget the ungodly mess of exception classes, and allows sheep to sleep and die if I feel poetic. Perl is Perl. It isn't Java. It isn't C++. It isn't Python (thank goodness). Maybe there are a few nifties we can borrow from those creations, but twisting the language inside out to make it closely resemble something second or third or fourth best is quite distasteful. We're improving a language here, not creating a new one. Again from Larry: "At the moment, I'm not only trying to follow along here; I'm also reading all the books on computer languaes I can get my hands on--not just to look for ideas to steal, but also to remind myself of the mindset Perl was designed to escape." and nate: "If you want Ada, you know where to find it" There are a lot of good ideas in these RFC's. Lot of wishing it was language X too, which I can't see as a good thing. Map to null, work around the problem. It takes, what, one line of code to do so? This isn't C where it would take 20 or C++ where it would take 200. But having a real switch statement... that's been on the table for years now... and having parseable regex syntax, fine.
RE: perl6storm #0050
On Wednesday, September 27, 2000 10:21 AM, John Porter [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: Philip Newton wrote: On 26 Sep 2000, Johan Vromans wrote: By the same reasoning, you can reduce the use of curlies by using indentation to define block structure. What an idea! I wonder why no language has tried this before. It's a question of what the language allows vs. what it requires. Perl is nice because it allows you to write in (nearly) any style you want -- lots of parens, no whitespace... Requiring the use of parens is about as un-perl-like as requiring indentation to denote blocks. Although I have no interest in saying anything supportive of this idea, I think it would be dreadfully funny if Python suddenly lost its primary point of advocacy against the Perl language just because we allowed (not required) blocks by indentation. Maybe then they'd stop invading perl5-advocacy. ;-)) But no thanks: pass. (Is that sys.pass() or language.pass()?)
