Don't use the constant pragma

here's an example (my formatting)

use constant ROTATE => 1; 
use constant HOLD => 2; 
use constant FLASH => 3; 
use constant NUM_MODES => 3;
# etc.

my %modestring = (
  +ROTATE => "a",
  +HOLD => "b",
  +FLASH => "c",
  # etc...
);
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sub ROTATE () { 1 }
# etc.

my %modestring = (
  +ROTATE => a,
  # etc.
);
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~Particle *accelerates*

Since all use constant does is creating such subs, I wonder why you dislike the constant module.

Abigail, author of the variable pragma.

i dislike the syntax... i don't think => looks like assignment. also, it creates a sub with an empty prototype behind the scenes, so why introduce the overhead for a syntax i don't agree with? i don't see what it gets me.

the use of subroutines with empty prototypes as inlinable is well documented in perlsub, and i expect anyone maintaining my code is familiar with this doc.

~Particle *accelerates*

That's just it: you shouldn't have to fix the context. Knowing you have to fix the context means knowing how the constant pragma is implemented, and that's not something you should need to know.

No, all you need to know is how => works. You have the same problem in:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings 'all';

sub foo {
    my %hash = (shift => 1);
    print keys %hash, "\n";
}

foo "bar";

__END__
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That prints shift and not bar.

Abigail