Re: RFC 168 (v1) Built-in functions should be functions

[John Porter]

Tom Christiansen wrote:
> >Well, as I mentioned in another recent parallel thread, if C<for> is to
> >be properly functionalized, 
> 
> Whoa -- why?  Syntax keywords (eg if, unless) certainly need not be
> expressible as functions.    This isn't tcl!

Ah, the old "If you want Tcl, you know where to find it" non-argument.

"Closures?"    "No!  This is Perl, not Lisp!"
"Objects?"     "No!  This is Perl, not Smalltalk!"
"Patterns?"    "No!  This is Perl, not Snobol!"
"Subroutines?" "No!  This is Perl, not Basic!"

"Upvars?"  "No, and for the following well-understood technical reasons..."

-- 
John Porter