...is the statement part of a conditional in the same block as the body itself?

No, the conditional is outside the block, both physically and logically (err...physiologically? ;-).

Your example is equivalent to: 

    my $el;
    while ($el = pop @els) {
        # Body of loop
    }

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BTW, in Perl 6, if and while (and the rest of the control structures) can be thought of as built-in functions. As if they were: 

    sub while (BOOL $condition, &closure) {...}

    sub if (BOOL $condition, &closure) {...}

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That's why the conditional is not part of the block: it's an entirely separate argument to the control structure.

And, yes, you'll be able to get the signature (a.k.a. prototype) of a control structure, and overload it, and redefine it (lexically).

And you'll probably be able to write bad things like: 

    if condition(), &call_me;

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and worse things like: 

    &debug := { if BEGIN{$debug}, &^action };

    # and later...

    debug { print "here" }

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In reply to Re: Re: Perl 6 will make amends (was:Perl's Bad Ideas) by TheDamian
in thread Perl's Bad Ideas by japhy

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