Random Perl 6 syntax rant

[Paul Makepeace]

On 4/2/08, Paul Makepeace <paulm at paulm.com> wrote:
> On 4/2/08, Ovid <publiustemp-londonpm at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  > --- Simon Wistow <simon at thegestalt.org> wrote:
>  >
>  >  > Yet every example we see looks alien and unfamiliar - the edge cases
>  >  > seem to be the norm.
>  >
>  >
>  > No, that's just because no one complains about things which they're
>  >  familiar and comfortable with (or have wanted in Perl 5 for so long
>  >  that they wouldn't complain about it).
>
>
> There's plenty in perl 5 we're familiar and comfortable with but
>  generally would like to see gone: this is one of the fundamental
>  drivers of change, in languages and out.
>
>  Also, new things inspire in us fascination and excitement, presumably
>  when you first encountered perl, for example :-)
>
>
>  >   my $cold = 3;
>  >
>  >   sub f2c ($temp) { return ( $temp - 32 ) * ( 5 / 9 ) }
>  >
>  >   if ( f2c($some_temp) > $cold ) {
>  >       say "$some_temp is really cold";
>  >   }
>  >
>  >  Simple.  Straightforward.  No one complains (some parens above are
>  >  optional and you can cheerfully leave them in with no problem).
>  >
>  >  When people complain, they're usually complaining about new things.
>
>
> When I learnt python I didn't find myself complaining a great deal...
>
>  I think Andy's point is one I would've made if he hadn't beaten me to
>  it - once you pass almost everything by reference a lot of this sigil
>  stuff somewhat Goes Away. Occasionally it's nice to be able to write
>  stuff like "my %tag = map {$_ => 1} $tag;" but it's an infrequent,

This of course was a deliberate error to make the point ;-)

Er, yeah...

>  naughty pleasure at the best of times.
>
>  **
>
>  Probably the main issue here is that a lot of these complaints about
>  perl 6 occur due to brief exposure to radically unfamiliar syntax, and
>  without the context of any preceding instruction or discussion. I
>  remember skipping thru the python book and midway through seeing a
>  whole heap of __this__ and __that__ and thinking 'ewww'. But now I
>  understand the context & rationale it's fine. I suspect the same would
>  be true of perl 6.
>
>  **
>
>  (I also think Ben's comments about how much perl 6 ends up in
>  production is spot on. Unless perl solves the deployment issue it'll
>  continue to be eaten alive by PHP and other 'easier' languages.)
>
>
>  P
>
>  >  Cheers,
>  >  Ovid
>  >
>  >
>  >  --
>  >  Buy the book  - http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlhks/
>  >  Perl and CGI  - http://users.easystreet.com/ovid/cgi_course/
>  >  Personal blog - http://publius-ovidius.livejournal.com/
>  >  Tech blog     - http://use.perl.org/~Ovid/journal/
>  >
>