Re^4: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator

First of all, ihb is not someone who wouldn't read the C docs if the Perl docs told him to. He is arguing on behalf of beginners, and those without a C background, etc.

Second, your analogy has a fallacy: algebra is a pre-req for calculus, but C is not a pre-req for Perl. A person going into Perl first of all languages is not expected to know C (or sed, or awk, or sh!). Therefore, depending on just what behavior it is they have to refer to C for, they might not understand what it is they're reading, because it'd be in a C context, not a Perl context. Besides, how much of Perl behaves like some language from which it is derived? Why don't we bundle the docs from those other languages with Perl, so Perl's docs can merely cross-reference theirs?

One problem I see is that while Perl is written in C, Perl does things differently than C. For one, Perl handles this pre-inc and post-inc thing differently. The documentation says the behavior is undefined, but it had better NOT say the behavior is undefined, "just like in C", because it is obviously not. I think Perl's docs need updating, in this case. I think the behavior is definable, we just haven't written it down to define it.

Instead of yelling at the original poster for venturing into the forbidden zone... I don't know. Something. Just don't chastise him for experimenting with the language and reporting his findings. He's learning. Let him learn.

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

Comment on Re^4: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator

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Re^5: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by itub (Priest) on Jun 24, 2004 at 15:42 UTC
I think the behavior is definable, we just haven't written it down to define it. I think you don't understand the idea behind the concept of "undefined behavior" in language specifications. It doesn't mean that the language will use a random number generator to give you an unpredictable result every time. In most cases, you'll find that the behavior is perfectly reproducible, and you could think of documenting it. Don't do it! Undefined behavior means that compiler writers has the freedom to choose whatever behavior they want, and the users of the language SHOULD NOT rely on the way the behavior is "defined", because the compiler writer has the freedom to change it in the next version. It's just like saying: cool, this module has this interesting undocumented variable! Let's use it! If you use it, it's under your own risk. The documentation is like a contract. And please don't send a documentation patch to the author before making sure that it's not undocumented for a reason.	[reply]
Re^6: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by japhy (Canon) on Jun 24, 2004 at 16:26 UTC
But I don't think this behavior should be changed, unless you were to change how Perl uses its variables entirely! It works naturally (that is, following a set of natural rules) due to how Perl itself works (that is, due to Perl's set of rules). _____________________________________________________ Jeff`[japhy]`Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area) `s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;`	[reply]
Re^7: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by diotalevi (Canon) on Jun 24, 2004 at 17:49 UTC
This behaviour has been under discussion as something just may well change. There was a discussion between Juerd and hv once where Juerd said something something the current way being the only sane way, really, and then hv countered with something else reasonable (this is all perl6 mind you) and noted that this behaviour is undefined for a reason. The observed behaviour is an artifact of the implementation - different implementations are allowed to have different behaviours.	[reply]
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