introspection (and Perl 6)

[Jonathan Rockway]

On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 15:13 +0000, David Cantrell wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 09:56:08AM -0500, Jeff Anderson wrote:
> > On Jan 22, 2008 5:49 AM, Ovid <publiustemp-londonpm at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > In short, if people can't read the code I write, that's my fault.  If
> > > they can't read the language I write in, that's their fault.
> 
> I take it that you consider yourself to be reasonably competent in perl
> 5?  Good, thought so.  Now, what does this do, and how does it work?
> 
> #:: ::-| ::-| .-. :||-:: 0-| .-| ::||-| .:|-. :||
> open(Q,$0);while(<Q>){if(/^#(.*)$/){for(split('-',$1)){$q=0;for(split){s/\|
> /:.:/xg;s/:/../g;$Q=$_?length:$_;$q+=$q?$Q:$Q*20;}print chr($q);}}}print"\n";
> #.: ::||-| .||-| :|||-| ::||-| ||-:: :|||-| .:|

It's fairly obvious, however that's beside the point.  This code isn't
even using any shorthand operators other than ?: (and // instead of
m//), but you're posting it to prove that shorthand operators are
unreadable?  What?

> I'm advocating a sensible compromise.  Saying 'HOW' would be a
> sensible compromise.

Then say 'HOW'?  

I will stick to the shorthand, though, because I like it better.  

Amazingly the human brain has the capacity to remember what a few
similar-looking characters do.  Notice how every Japanese person seems
to be able to distinguish between 2000 or so characters? [1]  Surely you
can handle 10 operators.   In both cases, it's all about context and
memorization.  They use language everyday; you write Perl everyday.
Just learn 'em.

[1] http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/jouyoukanji.html

Regards,
Jonathan Rockway
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