Re: RFC 109 (v1) Less line noise - let's get rid of @%

[Mike Pastore]

On 16 Aug 2000, Kai Henningsen wrote:

> > This is very Perlish to me; the punctuation is part of the variable name
> > and disambiguates nicely.  I'd be very upset if this idiom went away.
> 
> That would be nice if the punctuation actually *were* part of the variable  
> name.
> 
> However, it isn't: to access 'second', you'd say $args[1], NOT @args[1].  
> It's one of the Perl features that most confuses newcomers.
> 
> If there's no better argument than this, I'd throw this distinction away  
> in a heartbeat.
> 
> If the syntax can be changed so I never have to write @{some array ref}  
> again to explain to perl that yes, I really want to use this array as an  
> array, I'll be a happy man.

Would @$obj->method make you happy? Is it just the braces that's the
problem?

    $args[1]               # one whutzit
    @args[2..3]            # more than one whutzits
    @args                  # all whutzits

What's so complicated about that?

    $hashish{'dog'}        # one whutzit
    @hashish{'dog', 'cat'} # more than one whutzits
    each %hashish          # one whutzit, indexed
    %hashish               # all whutzits, indexed
    keys %hashish          # all indices
    values %hashish        # all whutzits

(/me notes that we need a way to take an indexed slice... hmm)

I know I'm being terribly redundant, but the point I'm trying to make is
that the contextual clues (@$%) don't tell you what IT is, but what you're
getting from IT. That's what's so important.

Take this away and Perl becomes C.

    int a;
    struct b;

*cough* No, thank you.

--
Mike Pastore
[EMAIL PROTECTED]