in reply to Re: No braces
in thread No braces

In perl, it's counter-intuitive to say something like: 
do_something() if(COND);

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Why is it counter-intuitive in Perl? It might be counter-intuitive for you, but that doesn't mean you can generalize that. It may be counter-intuitive for you to say I use my umbrella if it rains, but that doesn't make it counter-intuitive to say it in English. For the majority of the English speakers, it's not counter-intuitive to say "Effect if condition", and the counter intuitiveness of such a statement doesn't depend on the language.

Abigail

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Re: Re: No braces
by saberworks (Curate) on Feb 11, 2004 at 20:26 UTC
    I didn't mean that "just in perl" it's counter-intuitive, I meant, the way perl forces you to do it is counter-intuitive. Of course what is intuitive differs depending on the person, I just find it much more natural to put the condition first. I would never say, "I use my umbrella if it rains." I would say, "If it rains, I'll use my umbrella." Of course as the reply stated below, I could wrap the whole thing in parens and use && but that (IMO of course) is still not as intuitive as saying if(COND) do_something(); I've been working with perl now for years and I still pause and scratch my head when I see that in code. I fear I'll never get used to it.

    Either way, I didn't mean to say that it was only counter-intuitive in perl.
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      I meant, the way perl forces you to do it is counter-intuitive.
      But Perl doesn't require you to do it this way. Perl allows to put either the cause, or the effect to go first.

      Abigail

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        Sort of. You can only say if(COND) { do_something; } - you can't leave off the braces and still use that construct. You'd have to do something more funky using &&, etc.
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