Perl's lack of 'in' keyword

[Iain Barnett]

On 9 Oct 2008, at 9:00 pm, Aaron Trevena wrote:

> 2008/10/9 Iain Barnett <iainspeed at gmail.com>:
>>> Nah, it's not the "perl thought police" you have to worry about with
>>> that one - it's the radical functional programming fifth columnists
>>> posing as otherwise respectable members of the perl community ...
>>>
>>> /J\
>>
>> Is that a double invocation of Godwin's Law by stealth?
>
> No.
>
> The Fifth Column refers to "nationalist" sabateurs and agent
> provocateurs within the republican controlled areas of spain during
> the spanish civil war, it was for the most part a bogeyman used to
> justify infighting and secret police and sabotage of other parties
> within the republican alliance, mostly by the communists who were
> trying to take control using soviet supply and support as leverage.

No. That's the first use of the phrase, not necessarily what it  
refers to now.

>
>> It was, of course, in "1984" that the fascist government  
>> controlled people
>> though making the language smaller and resisting changes. That  
>> makes the
>> "in"-crowd proles, not 5th columnists. Unless you're a fascist[1] :D
>
> No. Proles are the common man, fifth columnists are the Emanual
> Goldstein (except of course that Goldstein), the Thought Police are
> neither the proletariat nor the fifth column.

No. Proles are the ones who are allowed to use their own (simple)  
language (like "in"), that's what I was referring to with that. To  
think that the analogy is a perfect fit in all aspects would be  
misguided (IMO), and I wasn't the one that brought it up in the first  
place (it was bad to begin with). Add to that, if one were a fascist  
then any challenge of authority would make the challenger a 5th  
Columnist in their eyes if the challenger were considered a  
"respectable member" of the group.

>
> IIRC George Orwell based the scenario in 1984 as much on totalitarian
> communist regime that eventually took almost exclusive control of the
> republican side during the civil war, as well as the fascists that it
> would more obviously be associated with, fighting as part of the
> international brigades gave him experience of what happens when the
> End justifies the Means, and the power of propoganda used by both
> sides throughout the war.
>

Thanks for the lesson, but I already knew that.

> A.
>
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