Adam Turoff wrote:
> Benjamin Goldberg wrote:
>> Adam Turoff wrote:
>>> On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 08:21:51PM -0500, Benjamin Goldberg wrote:
>>>> And what happens if a programmer wants to have two different
>>>> variables, of two different types, with the same name, such as
>>>> @data and %data?
>>>>
>>>> Without sigils, it cannot be done.
>>>
>>> Vast numbers of C, C++, C#, Java, Python, Lisp, APL, FORTRAN, Forth,
>>> COBOL, Shell, Basic, ASM, Pascal, Modula-*, Oberon, Smalltalk,
>>> Ruby, Ada, Tcl, Icon, SNOBOL and Objective C programmers have been
>>> quite productive for many man-millenia without this capability.
>>
>> Really? Then why does the following C program:
>>
>> int main(int arg_count, char * arg_vec[]) {
>> int foo;
>> double foo;
>> return 0;
>> }
>>
>> Produce an error when I try and compile it?
>
> Because it's ambiguous. You're proving my point, not refuting it.
Sorry -- I misread. Somehow, I thought you were saying that it could be
done in those languages, when you were actually saying that those
languages don't have it and noone's ever felt it to be a lack.
> Perl programmers are the odd lot because $data and @data are two
> different variables with the name "data".
Actually, if they're dynamic variables, then they're both one variable,
named *data, and they're accessing different portions of the *data
thingy.
If they're lexicals, *then* they're two different variables... though
I'm not entirely certain how they're internally named. PadWalker
presents them as variables named '$data' and '@data'.
> Virtually[*] every other programming language doesn't allow this, and
> programmers using those languages don't have a problem finding names
> other than "foo" and "bar" for their variables.
>
> I've never come across a programmer who wishes he could do this
> in C and have the compiler magically know what's what:
>
> int spam (int spam, char **spam) {
> int eggs;
> double spam;
> return 0;
> }
Well... What if you were to write this as:
int f_spam(int i_spam, char **p_p_c_spam) {
int i_eggs;
double d_spam;
return 0;
}
Surely that would be legible, right?
Except, of course, that since this is perl, we spell 'f_' as '&', and
'i_' and 'd_' as '$', and 'p_' as '@'.
> Z.
>
> [*] Now that I think about it, there are many languages in the BASIC
> family. Some of them use sigil suffixes, but recent and modern
> ones don't. Basic-PLUS probably did, since it influenced Perl.
--
$a=24;split//,240513;s/\B/ => /for@@=qw(ac ab bc ba cb ca
);{push(@b,$a),($a-=6)^=1 for 2..$a/6x--$|;print "[EMAIL PROTECTED]
]\n";((6<=($a-=6))?$a+=$_[$a%6]-$a%6:($a=pop @b))&&redo;}
