Re: RFC 109 (v1) Less line noise - let's get rid of @%

[Nathan Wiger]

> This RFC proposes that C<$x>, C<@x>, and C<%x> be ditched and
> replaced with C<$x> for everything.

Let me be the first to say "No!". I like this feature. I always have,
and always will. It's super-duper easy to glance at this code and tell
what is what:

   @stuff = read_stuff;

   foreach (@stuff) {
      $$_ = 1;
   }

   while (($key, $val) = each %data) {
      print "$key is $val\n";
   }

This is one of the things I really like about Perl: being able to tell
what type of thing I'm looking at. Is is a list? A single value? A hash
of values? No sweat, look at the prefix.

Giving this up is a horrible, horrible idea and would be a tremendous
step backwards for Perl. If people don't like prefixes, there are plenty
of other alternative languages, such as C, C++, Java, and so on. And you
can always embed Perl in C, if you just want to regexp stuff without all
the Perl.

Prefixes aren't for the computer. They're for us humans.

-Nate

P.S. Anyone who hasn't, please read this email from TomC. I think you'll
understand prefixes are a GOOD THING:

http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language@perl.org/msg00329.html