RE (\d+): C Style For and Foreach The Same

Why confuse them though? I would think that telling them up front that they are the same would be easier for them in the long run. Bad enough that some perl programmers still think that they are somehow different. I never use "foreach" myself, but that's because I am exercising the first Perl Virtue. :)

Comment on RE (\d+): C Style For and Foreach The Same

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RE: RE (\d+): C Style For and Foreach The Same by tilly (Archbishop) on Aug 18, 2000 at 18:01 UTC
What makes you think I confuse them? I show them the idiom as I write it and encourage them to write it the same way. If the question of whether they are the same comes up, I just say, "Yeah, they are aliases for each other, but I like to write them differently because I think it is clearer that way." I have yet to see anyone find that a huge hurdle. I have seen getting used to the different type of looping be a hurdle. As for telling people things up front, do you think that up front I tell people that blocks are really hashes, REs are really done by recursion, or many other minor details of the language? Perl is a big language, with many corners, and you shouldn't present it all at once.	[reply]

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RE: RE (\d+): C Style For and Foreach The Same
by tilly (Archbishop) on Aug 18, 2000 at 18:01 UTC

I show them the idiom as I write it and encourage them to write it the same way. If the question of whether they are the same comes up, I just say, "Yeah, they are aliases for each other, but I like to write them differently because I think it is clearer that way." I have yet to see anyone find that a huge hurdle. I have seen getting used to the different type of looping be a hurdle.

As for telling people things up front, do you think that up front I tell people that blocks are really hashes, REs are really done by recursion, or many other minor details of the language? Perl is a big language, with many corners, and you shouldn't present it all at once.

[reply]