Now that Larry has spoken on the issue of vocabulary, it's lexicanonical. On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 12:49 PM Larry Wall <la...@wall.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 04:15:02AM -0700, Todd Chester wrote: > : Also, did you answer my question about "::" and did it > : just go over my head? > > The implication was that "::" didn't change, but the default package > scoping of p5 that you're relying on is no longer the default in p6. > > : The p5 guys use to tell me "its lexiconical", meaning it was figured > : out on the fly. (Took me forever to catch on.) Is that any > : relation to your use of the word "lexical"? > > I would like to see a citation of this use of the word "lexiconical". > In the first place, the word "lexiconical" has not been used in > perl5-porters in living memory, and if had been used there, it is > unlikely to have meant "figured out on the fly". > > : https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lexical?s=t > : > : adjective > : > : of or relating to the words or vocabulary of a language, > : especially as distinguished from its grammatical and > : syntactical aspects. > : > : of, relating to, or of the nature of a lexicon. > > The relationship of lexicons to lexical scoping here is a bit tenuous, > but it goes something like this: Every scope in your program can define > things local to that scope. When a scope does define something, it's > creating a new lexicon of terms, like a private lingo or patois for a > given workplace that no other workplace will understand. It is that > set of private definitions (overlaid on all the definitions pulled in > from larger scopes) that functions as a "dictionary" here. > > So when people say "lexically scoped", they mean there are multiple > lexicons, > and each symbol is looked in the nearest one that actually has a definition > for the term. The whole point of "scoping" is to decide what is near, and > what is far. > > So, for instance, you may have worked in a workplace or participated > in a forum where the local lexicon of the "p5 guys" contained the > word "lexiconical" with some kind of idiosyncratic meaning involving > dynamic lookup. That term is not used in the larger p5 culture that > way, so people outside that workplace or forum will not understand that > idiosyncratic definition of "lexiconical", which seems to have nothing > whatsoever to do with lexicons. > > Lexical scoping is not figured out on the fly; it's figured out while the > code is compiling. You can have delayed compilation when you eval a > string, > of course, but then the fact that the lexical lookups are delayed is not > a special feature of the lexicon; everything related to the compiler is > delayed when you eval. "Figured out on the fly" is a feature of eval, not > of lexicons. > > Now, all that being said, in p5 subroutines are looked up in packages, > and packages are modifiable, so we do have to discover what to call "on > the fly" in that case. But in p5 culture we never refer to packages as > lexicons because that would confuse people. > > In Perl 6 culture we never mix them up either, but we also never put subs > into packages by default. The reason Foo::bar notation doesn't work is > because bar isn't in Foo anymore unless you explicitly put it there. > > Larry >
