Looks good . . . but how short do we want them?
For the non-Perl audience, I think it might be worth mentioning the
(to us) obvious automatic context manipulations. e.g.,
~ is "stitching" strings, and will make strings out of its arguments
if it can -- it's not adding, but has the same precedence, so:
$x = 1 ~ 2 + 3; # 15: is "12" + 3, string coerced to number
maybe even add
$y = (1 ~ 2) + 3; # 15: same as above, but explicit
$z = 1 ~ (2 + 3); # 15: 1 ~ 5, numbers coerced to strings
though I think that adds up to a bit too much clutter.
Or have I gone too long without sleep? It looks funny....
The point is that we want these articles to play up both the old
"perlishness" that's retained for those fearful of change, and give a
good feel of what "perlishness" is all about to those used to C and
Java...or CoBOL and ForTran. We also want shell programmers to see that
the convenience factor of quick scripting is still there, but with
Perl's ramped-up capabilities -- it beats the hell out of ksh and awk,
after all, but isn't really so much harder to learn and use, either at
the low or the high end.
Maybe we should add a "Making the easy things easy, and the hard things
possible" tagline to all these articles. :)
Also -- is it out of the scope of these to have each perhaps present a
basic problem and a use of the operator to solve it? I think the zip
article does that, and the example helped, but this one seems like a
small but faintly operator-spicy example would help, even if a little
contrived.
sub page_ruler ( uint8 $len = 80 ) { # take int, max 256, default 80
my $ruler = ''; # declares a buffer
my $digit = 0; # starts with 0
$ruler ~= $digit++ % 10 # appends next digit
while length($ruler) < $len; # till there's enough
return $ruler; # and returns the string
}
my $r = page_ruler(25); # 0123456789012345678901234
Again, PLEASE double-check my probably goofy syntax.
Paul
--- Adriano Ferreira <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 9/18/07, Paul Hodges <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > --- Adriano Ferreira <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > [[snips here and at end]]
> > > > . . . I have one suggestion: you might want to mention
> > > > the roundrobin function in the article on the zip function
> since
> > > > the two are very closely related.
> > >
> > > Thanks, Joe and Alberto.
> > >
> > > Even though the roundrobin is very closely related to zip, I
> think
> > > that mentioning it and giving an explanation would add length and
> > > detail to the article. I already sacrificed the trick with (@x,
> *) to
> > > extend a list and the @@() for multidimensional context, which
> are
> > > fine but too much for this piece of text.
> >
> > It would certainly add length, but you could minimize the addition
> of
> > detail by using them as hooks. Maybe embed them in a special
> section...
> > e.g.,
> >
> > <hypothetical>
> > For the Gearheads....
> >
> > We won't bore you with excess details, but for more info on the
> trick
> > with (@x, *) to extend a list and the @@() for multidimensional
> > context, c.f. .....
> > </hypothetical>
>
> I am thinking about such hooks and good ways to do that. More on that
> later.
>
> > Sorry, not sure where to link off the top of my head, but if anyone
> > thinks it's a good idea I'll look it up on request.
> >
> > > Well, it's kind of hard to keep these articles small and
> interesting.
> > > Maybe this stuff can find their way in later articles.
> >
> > Personally, I'm a bit behind on my P6, but I think this is a good
> idea.
> >
> > I'd be happy to contribute something, and though my time is short
> like
> > everyone's these days, please feel free to contact me here or
> offline
> > with requests or suggestions. If you like, I could even try to
> > ghost-write an article or three. I'll go look over the list and see
> if
> > there's anything I feel competent to work with (but feel free to
> tell
> > I'm a schmuck and I shouldn't bother if I don't post more. =o)
>
> I salute every bit of help. I am trying to organize the production
> and
> will hopefully provide more details soon. By now, I think that I can
> handle suggestions and corrections to the articles. The next one is
> here:
>
> http://ferreira.nfshost.com/perl6/stitching6.html
>
===============================================================
Hodges' Rule of Thumb: Don't expect reasonable behavior from anything with a
thumb.
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