Perl's lack of 'in' keyword

[Iain Barnett]

On 7 Oct 2008, at 6:45 pm, Andy Armstrong wrote:

> On 7 Oct 2008, at 18:28, Iain Barnett wrote:
>>> And (meta) who cares about people who think that Perl reads like  
>>> line noise. Should the language bend to the preferences of those  
>>> who dislike it?
>>
>> With that attitude it's a wonder why anyone picks languages other  
>> than perl.
>
>
> It wasn't meant to be unfriendly although I can see that it could  
> be read that way.

Ok, no problem. I read it that way because the default monger  
response to any criticism of perl is the old Wimbledon chant, "No one  
likes us but we don't care".

On 7 Oct 2008, at 7:25 pm, Jonathan Stowe wrote:
>
> If I had a quid...

Helpfully, this proves my point. If I had a quid for every time  
somebody stuck their head in the sand about perl's shortcomings I'd  
have twice as much money as Mr Stowe would have made. At least.


On 7 Oct 2008, at 6:45 pm, Andy Armstrong wrote:
>  It does seem to me that someone saying "I don't like Perl - it  
> reads like line noise" is /not/ a reason to change the language so  
> it less resembles line noise to that person. Presumably people who  
> like Perl also like - or at least are accustomed to - how it looks.
>


I agree with both your points, but that also doesn't invalidate the  
point that perl might benefit from less "line noisy" syntax at times,  
just as ~~ doesn't necessarily obviate the need for an "in" operator.  
The smart match does look good though.


Iain