[prev] [thread] [next] [lurker] [Date index for 2006/12/22]
Abigail skribis 2006-12-22 17:34 (+0100):
> > The parens for sqrt(9) are a post-circum-fix operator in Perl6.
> A *what*?
postcircumfix, one of the two binary operators.
unary prefix ++foo
unary postfix foo++
unary circumfix {foo}
binary infix foo + bar
binary postcircumfix foo(bar)
> Pointless argument. If it were that easy to tweak the grammar, the
> whitespace would have been optional in the first place. You will NOT be
> able to change the grammar easily (not because the syntax of changing
> the grammar is necessarily difficult, but because the Perl6 grammar is
> extremely complex, and changing one thing will have to mean a ton of
> other things have to change as well. Perl6 ain't Forth nor Lisp).
That's why after much debate and deliberation, the new whitespace rules
are the way they are: it is considered by many wise people to be the
only way to have a consistent solution.
> Besides, noone is interested in having a language were each coder
> creates his/her own (incompatible) dialect.
Erh. Heh. Funny that you mention this, as we're both Perl 5 coders, and
both speak a very different, hardly compatible dialect!
> Perl5 had no problem coping with those rules (and it also uses ()
> for clauses in if, while, etc, has optional () on the left hand side
> of x, uses () around prototypes, etc), and it can all do that without
> syntactically significant whitespace.
That caused problems elsewhere:
foo [ 5 ];
would have to mean
foo( [ 5 ] );
according to many, but if you apply your rule consistently, it'd be
foo[5];
which would take the 6th element of the array returned by foo().
For several reasons, the rules for all bracketing operators, and in
fact, ALL \W postfix and postcircumfix operators, are now the same in
Perl 6.
> > You are right that Perl 6 is less friendly (you could say hostile) for
> > people with different whitespace styles than Perl 5 was.
> Yep. Were one of the features of Perl1 to Perl5 was the fact that people
> coming from different schools would feel welcome, Perl6 takes a dramatic
> steps and is outright hostile towards those not coding according to the
> standards set by the cabal.
> HATE. HATE. HATE.
:)
--
korajn salutojn,
juerd waalboer: perl hacker <juerd@xxxxx.xx> <http://juerd.nl/sig>;
convolution: ict solutions and consultancy <sales@xxxxxxxxxxx.xx>
Ik vertrouw stemcomputers niet.
Zie <http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/>;.
There's stuff above here
Generated at 03:02 on 01 Jan 2007 by mariachi 0.52