It is optional. Nobody forces to use it on you. So the argument"this old code/formatting style is incompatible" is irrelevant. Most Perl code (and formatting styles) is compatible with this proposal, although experiments with the prototype might be beneficial to determine the depth of the scanner look ahead needed.

It might make sense to enable it only with -d options as a help for debugging, which cuts the number of debugging runs for those who do not have editor with built-in syntax checking (like ActiveState Komodo Editor; which really helps is such cases ).

That list includes most Linux/Unix system administrators, who use just command line and vi or similar. And they also use bash of daily basis along with Perl, which increases the probability of making such an error. And this is probably one of the most important category of uses for the future of Perl: Perl started with this group (Larry himself, Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Christiansen, etc) and after a short affair with the Web programming (yahoo, etc) and bioinformatics (bioperl) retreated back to the status of the scripting language of choice for the elite Unix sysadmins.

That does not exclude other users and applications, but I think the core of Perl users are now Unix sysadmins. And their interests should be reflected in Perl 7 with some priority.

BTW, I do not see benefits of omitted semicolons in the final program (as well as, in certain cases, omitted round brackets).

In reply to Re^6: What esteemed monks think about changes necessary/desirable in Perl 7 outside of OO staff by likbez
in thread What esteemed monks think about changes necessary/desirable in Perl 7 outside of OO staff by likbez

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