Ah, but you're thinking of someone who gets to choose what's installed on a machine, or used on a project. When I referred to "someone for whom Perl wasn't an option", I was thinking of someone whose manager simply directed him or her to implement something in DCL.
/ Tom Edelson -----Original Message----- From: Carl Friedberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 11:52 AM To: Tom Edelson; Thomas R Wyant_III; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Perl vs. DCL (was RE: Set Default not Working) Tom, I personally feel that logical names and name tables are among the most powerful features easily available to end users on VMS. However, I would not equate them with Perl hashes. There are overheads associated with logical names which could cause problems if they were used where Perl hashes would be a more appropriate (and efficient) mechanism. As Perl is free software (although requiring ANSI C to compile), it can be installed on most modern VMS operating systems. For those who are stuck with a VAX730 or similar dinosaur, it probably is not an option. The hobbyist license makes DEC/Compaq C available to all interested home (non-commercial) users. Just my 2 cents. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Edelson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 11:44 AM To: Thomas R Wyant_III; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Perl vs. DCL (was RE: Set Default not Working) You can create as many logical name tables as you want, and you can specify that a new one will have, as its parent table, another of the ones you created. So you can build a tree structure of name tables. I think this could be used to implement a hash of hashes, even one with multiple levels. However! I never meant to suggest that anyone (except a masochist) would choose to do this in DCL, if they had the choice of doing it in Perl. It's a curiousity, like a dog walking on its hind legs. I was feeling pleased with myself for having noticed that it should be possible. But its only practical importance would be to someone for whom Perl wasn't an option. / Tom Edelson ...
