I disregard purists and puratism, just as I do all forms of dogmatism, in code and in life. Whilst most dogma starts life as useful rules of thumb, once they become elevated to "Thou shalt not..." rules, they become constricting instead of enabling.

The master carpenters adage, 'measure twice, cut once' is extremely good advice for any occasional DIYer, but if the same master carpenter was offered employment on the basis that he would always measure twice, he'd probably pass.

With respect to the particular 'one entry-one exit' rule, Maybe you'll forgive me if I lapse into another analogy. Can you imagine if every road started at one city/town/village/district/house and ended at another? Or if you had to have a seperate waterpipe from source to every house?

Branches are useful. Tee's are useful. I understand the sentiment behind it. Really I do. And in the past I have written some torturous code attempting to comply with it.

I think that (for me) the most important word in that oft-denied acronym that isn't, is Practical. It's that one word and Mr.Wall's greater concept underlying it, that defines the way Perl is. It's that one single notion that made and continues to make perl so useful and usable. It's also what makes it fun.

If there is one thing that I fear with the advent of the drive to Perl 6 it's that that element of the language may get watered down and lost somewhere along the way in favour of more 'correct' notions. I know I am not alone in this fear, though I don't have quite such a pessimistic view of the future as some.

In sincerely hope that LW has the strength, energy and resolve to incorporate those features that will allow stricter adherance to some of the purer OO-concepts and provide for extension of existing syntactic sugar where these 'fit', without allowing the language to become bogged down with the 'Thou shalts' and 'Thou shalt nots' that constrain, complicate and frustrate in many other languages.

Time will tell, but from what I seen of what's coming out of the Perl 6 camp, we're "safe in his hands".

Examine what is said, not who speaks.

The 7th Rule of perl club is -- pearl clubs are easily damaged. Use a diamond club instead.

In reply to Re: A matter of style by BrowserUk
in thread A matter of style by Ryszard

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