I read perl5-porters avidly (and comp.lang.perl.misc (but not
quite so avidly :-))
I rarely ever post or reply because I don't feel that I can contribute
much to the discussion that hasn't already been said. It is very unusual
that I feel strongly enough about something to let everyone know about it.
I've been using perl since version 3 and I have a real fondness for it.
I like the way perl has evolved so far but some of the things I have
been reading lately tend to make me a bit sad.
Tim Bunce said:
> Remember that one day we may have references to regex's. I hope we
> won't be arguing over assigning a line noise character for them.
Whenever people used the phrase "line noise" to describe perl, I
tended to think that they just didn't understand Perl.
The concept of placing the type one wanted from the RHS in the syntax of
the LHS of an assignment, for example, is something that I've always
thought was unique to perl and was a good thing (e.g. @x = &foo() vs.
$x = &foo()). I thought that to anyone who knew Perl, this could not
be considered line noise since it is so intrinsic to Perl.
It bothers me to hear respected people perpetuating the idea that perl
looks like line noise; people such as Tom and Tim most recently.
This is not meant to be a personal attack, btw. I'm sure you don't think
perl is line noise -- you would probably just rather see perl develop
into a less terse language and adding new "line noise" seems to be going
backwards perhaps (but I'll let you speak for yourselves).
I like the new object oriented features in perl5. Along with references
we can now do things simply that were previously very cumbersome to
implement in perl4.
One thing that always bothered me about perl4 was the handling of
filehandles using "bearwords". A filehandle (or dirhandle) seemed to
want to be a type of its own with its own syntax character and
I always just thought it to be an historical accident which no one was
ever bothered enough about to fix.
With respect to giving a filehandle a syntax character of it's own,
I find that I am more convinced by the arguments of Charles Bailey
(I hope I've spelt your name correctly) than anyone else.
Perl is about choices and I'm afraid that perl might be heading in
a direction that seeks to deny us those choices. Sure, we can all
write everything in the new wonderful object oriented perl5 way.
We can all "use English" from now on as well. But I think we might
be losing something. Isn't Perl meant to be Pathologically Eclectic,
anyway?
I will write my programs in well structured object-oriented perl5
but in my spare time I would still like to be able to write the
tersest most "line noisy" programs that I feel like. That's why I like
perl; because I can write in what ever style feels right at the time.
> So, rather than use $ref = \*STDIN; or add a new line noise character
> I'd like to see a new function something like $ref = io(*STDIN);
Again with the line noise... :-). Although, I'm probably in
the minority here, I would welcome the addition of more "line noise"
to signify instrinsic types such as filehandles, regexps, formats etc.
provided the characters involved were well thought out. That is Perl.
Thanks for reading this far since I've probably gone on for too long
but in summary: I think that removing historical inconsistencies and
smoothing some jagged edges in the existing (and much loved) language
is just as important in its evolution as moving in new directions.
-paul
quite so avidly :-))
I rarely ever post or reply because I don't feel that I can contribute
much to the discussion that hasn't already been said. It is very unusual
that I feel strongly enough about something to let everyone know about it.
I've been using perl since version 3 and I have a real fondness for it.
I like the way perl has evolved so far but some of the things I have
been reading lately tend to make me a bit sad.
Tim Bunce said:
> Remember that one day we may have references to regex's. I hope we
> won't be arguing over assigning a line noise character for them.
Whenever people used the phrase "line noise" to describe perl, I
tended to think that they just didn't understand Perl.
The concept of placing the type one wanted from the RHS in the syntax of
the LHS of an assignment, for example, is something that I've always
thought was unique to perl and was a good thing (e.g. @x = &foo() vs.
$x = &foo()). I thought that to anyone who knew Perl, this could not
be considered line noise since it is so intrinsic to Perl.
It bothers me to hear respected people perpetuating the idea that perl
looks like line noise; people such as Tom and Tim most recently.
This is not meant to be a personal attack, btw. I'm sure you don't think
perl is line noise -- you would probably just rather see perl develop
into a less terse language and adding new "line noise" seems to be going
backwards perhaps (but I'll let you speak for yourselves).
I like the new object oriented features in perl5. Along with references
we can now do things simply that were previously very cumbersome to
implement in perl4.
One thing that always bothered me about perl4 was the handling of
filehandles using "bearwords". A filehandle (or dirhandle) seemed to
want to be a type of its own with its own syntax character and
I always just thought it to be an historical accident which no one was
ever bothered enough about to fix.
With respect to giving a filehandle a syntax character of it's own,
I find that I am more convinced by the arguments of Charles Bailey
(I hope I've spelt your name correctly) than anyone else.
Perl is about choices and I'm afraid that perl might be heading in
a direction that seeks to deny us those choices. Sure, we can all
write everything in the new wonderful object oriented perl5 way.
We can all "use English" from now on as well. But I think we might
be losing something. Isn't Perl meant to be Pathologically Eclectic,
anyway?
I will write my programs in well structured object-oriented perl5
but in my spare time I would still like to be able to write the
tersest most "line noisy" programs that I feel like. That's why I like
perl; because I can write in what ever style feels right at the time.
> So, rather than use $ref = \*STDIN; or add a new line noise character
> I'd like to see a new function something like $ref = io(*STDIN);
Again with the line noise... :-). Although, I'm probably in
the minority here, I would welcome the addition of more "line noise"
to signify instrinsic types such as filehandles, regexps, formats etc.
provided the characters involved were well thought out. That is Perl.
Thanks for reading this far since I've probably gone on for too long
but in summary: I think that removing historical inconsistencies and
smoothing some jagged edges in the existing (and much loved) language
is just as important in its evolution as moving in new directions.
-paul