On Tue, 08 May 2001 20:21:10 -0500, David L. Nicol wrote:
>What if, instead of cramming everything into "scalar" to the point
>where it loses its value as "a data type that magically converts
>between numeric and string, as needed," we undo the Great Perl5
>Dilution and undecorate references.
Undecorated if for function calls and methods. And buolt-ins, of course.
>So what I am suggesting is, Scalar as catch-all for unclassifiables
>that are neither strings nor numbers may have been a historic stopgap
>measure in perl 5 which was seen to be unworkable given the profusion of
>object types which became available in perl 6.
>
>An object of type "abstracted reference to a chair" is _NOT_ an object of
>type "numeric or string that magicly switches between as needed"
So what you're really saying is that references aren't really scalars,
but their own type. Thus they need their own prefix.
But we've sort of run out of possible prefixes.
--
Bart.
