Re^2: Slice Madness

Perl got where it is via evolution^*. Evolution begets cruft. It strikes me as particularly ivory-tower-minded of people to wring their hands over these little throwbacks, particularly considering that Perl was never intended to be elegant. I trust you know where to find Ruby.

It's not like this thing is something that's constantly tripping people up and making Perl painful to use. It's more of a wart that adds some amusing character. Yes, it's a flaw. What is there to do about it? Break backward-compatibility? That would be a worse flaw. And that's why evolution begets cruft.

*You were thinking maybe intelligent design?

Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

Comment on Re^2: Slice Madness

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Re^3: Slice Madness by Anonymous Monk on Nov 10, 2005 at 00:08 UTC
You were thinking maybe intelligent design? Yup! Larry certainly designed most of Perl intelligently enough. In some ways, it makes the areas where he didn't more jarring, because they're unexpected, and thus confusing. And by the way, thanks, Larry! :-) It's a small nit, but the nits add up. The more of them we can clean up, the better. Yes, it's a flaw. What is there to do about it? Break backward-compatibility? That would be a worse flaw. Yup. It doesn't have to be a flaw: we can deprecate the feature, like we've done in the past. Just add a warning like: "$x .. $y better written as flip_flop($x,$y)" for flip flops. Put in an explanation that flip flops must be written explictly so that they're not confused with the range operator, and in a few years, we could remove the feature entirely. Remember, effort at development time is easy. Until the program is put in production, it can be changed without impacting end users. Effort at mainenance time is hard; any change to the program will have to be analysed for it's impact on the end users. Fixing bugs is easy; finding bugs is hard. Giving the users one less bug is worth it, IMHO. -- Ytrew	[reply]
Re^4: Slice Madness by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on Nov 10, 2005 at 04:00 UTC
The thing is, it's not a bug. It's just a quirk. Something that could have been more beautiful if they'd thought of that. Like using ' instead of :: for package specs, and -> instead of . for dereferencing. Neither of which has gone away. BTW, I like the flip-flop operator, and I don't think a spelled-out function version is an improvement. Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.	[reply]
Re^3: Slice Madness by Anonymous Monk on Nov 09, 2005 at 23:18 UTC
Ruby is much perfect as we Japaness are made for perfection. We are made to lead the world to its perfection even it means pain to our own nation and people.	[reply]
Re^4: Slice Madness by TimToady (Parson) on Nov 10, 2005 at 00:56 UTC
頑張って，よ！でも，日本語を習う場会はもう痛く過ぎます，ね。`:-)`	[reply]
Re^5: Slice Madness by SciDude (Friar) on Nov 12, 2005 at 00:37 UTC
Spoiler Translation (approx): <Reveal this spoiler or all in this thread> SciDude The first dog barks... all other dogs bark at the first dog.	[reply]
Re^5: Slice Madness by diotalevi (Canon) on Nov 10, 2005 at 14:43 UTC
⠄⠱⠁⠞ ⠮ ⠓⠑⠇⠆⠖	[reply]
Re^4: Slice Madness by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on Nov 10, 2005 at 14:01 UTC
And on behalf of the rest of the world, I thank you. The perfection of the Japaness[sic] is a source of great delight. Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.	[reply]