Tom Christiansen wrote:
>
> > I have retained the title of "Lexical variables made default,"
> >because I still feel that that is the primary purpose of this change,
> >meaning that in future Perl documentation (books, manpages, classes (I
> >hope)) new Perl users will first be presented with variables declared
> >as lexicals with my().
>
> Illustrative snippets of tiny code should not confuse the reader
> with gratuitous my/our declarations unless these are themselves
> central to what is being illustrated.
>
> --tom
I disagree. In my personal transition from Perl4 to Perl5, I would
not have thought there to be a value in the my() operator if I hadn't
seen it used so pervasively in documentation. The fact that almost
*every* POD and module reference I read used my() weighed deeply
enough on me to investigate the issue and learn what I was missing.
I use my() like second nature.
At some point in time, the perl5 manpage included "the -w switch is
not on by default" as a "bug." I would put this issue in a similar
class. The vocabulary has already changed, at least in most of the
documentation I read. The documentation and books I see that don't
start with my() very early on often don't use it at all, making a
tough re-education necessary for new Perl programmers.
J. David
