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

[Tom Christiansen]

>Doesn't that tend to lead us in the direction of pack madness where we
>end up with yet another 'sub language' within perl. We've already got
>pack specifiers and regexen and the 'old' prototyping stuff. I'm not
>arguing *against* these things you understand, I'm just vaguely
>worried. 

As you have observed, nestled lightly within the language of Perl
there are many sub-languages.

I don't know how to have a rich and powerful enough prototype syntax
without well, inventing some syntax, you know? :-)

Now, it may be that [such prototypes] are not desirable.  But that's
another matter.  

I think it's valuable to be able to say "this function takes any number
of BLAH", where BLAH might be something like "arrays that will be 
passed by reference".  I don't mean any number of hashes, scalars, or
whatnot.  Given that, one must come up with something.  I'm sure
Damian will have it tastefully covered.

--tom