Re: We know what you need, and we'll push it down your throat.

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From: Juerd
Subject: Re: We know what you need, and we'll push it down your throat.
Date: 17:00 on 22 Dec 2006
Abigail skribis 2006-12-22 17:46 (+0100):
> Ah, come on. Perl has been around for 17 years. I've seen thousands of
> postings of Usenet, mailing list, and even Perlmonks. I've yet to see
> *any* posting were someone was getting confused that
>     'function (EXPR1) + EXPR2'
> was parsed as '(function (EXPR1)) + EXPR2'.

I cannot believe that you've never seen anyone being confused by this.
You have been around in Perl world much longer than I have, and I have
seen it numerous times.

> Really? Do you really think that people coming from a language that
> allows whitespace between the function name and the parenthesis find
> it *nice* that in Perl the meaning of the statement silently changes
> whether theres a space or not?

No, I think they'll hate it.

> I think it's downright hostile.

Indeed. I already said that.

> I guesss you don't know much perl5.

I'm certain that you can estimate my Perl competence very well. Indeed I
have much to learn.

> Really. The ability not to have parenthesis around function and subroutine
> arguments isn't a new perl6 thingy.
> Perl5 does do fine.
> And the whitespace is optional in Perl5.

Very true. However, it causes inconsistency between parens and
everything else.

I hate such inconsistency, but you think it's acceptable.

You hate giving up whitespace, but I think it's acceptable.

> Buahahahhahahaahhahaa.

:)

> > > (So, what's 'grep {/foo/} @bar;' meaning in perl6?)
> > Syntax error. grep takes two arguments, you need a comma in between:
> >     grep {/foo/}, @bar
> So, all the trouble of having optional parenthesis around guards not
> only gives use significant whitespace, but also robs us from the optional
> comma?

It's not optional in Perl 5. It's forbidden.

This is just a syntax change. 

> And this is progress?

This is necessary in order to establish progress elsewhere, or so Larry
Wall has determined.
-- 
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

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