On Fri, Nov 28, 2003 at 10:27:45AM -0700 it came to pass that Cory Spencer wrote:
>
> > > On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Leopold Toetsch wrote:
> > >
> > > > Op vtable Meaning
> > > > - is_same PMCs are ident
> > > > - is_equal PMCs are equivalent, holding the same value
> > > > Y cmp cmp PMCs
> > > > - cmp_num cmp PMCs numerically
> > > > - cmp_string cmp PMCs as strings
> > > >
> > > > Proposals for opcode names welcome.
> > >
> > > [snip]
>
> Well, a page could be stolen from the Lisp book by defining eq/eql/equal
> opcodes (though in ths case, differing from the Lisp counterparts in the
> meaning of the tests) where
>
> - eq is true if both arguments have the same value (that is, both are
> numerically equal or both are equivalent strings)
> - eql is true if both arguments are the same, identical object
> - equal does a comparison to test if the two objects are structurally
> similar (ie. in the case of a PerlArray, an element-by-element
> comparrison would be performed to determine the similarity of the
> structure.)
>
> Cory
I think this is definitely something we should do if we want to confuse
people as much as possible :-)
Much can be said about this topic, but let's keep in mind that:
- The length of the opcode name is not important for execution speed or
memory space used (this contrary to the early LISP
machines/interpreters).
- English is only a small language (with respect to the amount of native
speakers, which are mainly restricted to a number of large islands
and some of the residents of a large and mostly uninhabited landmass
somewhere on the western hemisphere) :-)
Non-native speakers can not be trusted to immediately grasp the
semantic differences between things as:
- equal/identical/same
- compare/test
I would therefore vote that we keep these opcodes as verbose as
possible. So no eq/eql/equal, but rather
same_address/same_content/compare/compare_as_num/compare_as_string.
And remember, I am nobody... :-)
++Jos.es
--
Viel mehr als gestern liebe ich dich heute.
Doch weniger noch als ich dich morgen lieben wird.
"Wie vor Jahr und Tag", Reinhard Mey
