I'm not talking about efficiency. I'm talking about natural flow in programming. Every time I have to stop to use a foreach loop because a map wouldn't work, I have to create temporary variables, think of reasonable names for them, and then document them, and ensure their scope is large enough but not too large.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an FP fascist. But most of the time, temporary values forced on me by the syntax just seems awkward.

Let's go back to this remove-cap function. In a return-value situation, I can use it like this: 

my @data = map { RemoveCaps $_ } @input;

[download]
Whereas in a act-on-arguments mode, I've got to write this: 
my @data = map { my $x = $_; RemoveCaps $x; $x } @input;

[download]
I can't use $_ directly, because it would attempt to alter @input (see the other thread on that {grin}). So now I have to invent a stand-in, just so I can act on it.

Just one guy's opinion from someone who's been coding for 30+ years.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

In reply to RE: (Ovid) RE(2): modify variable on pass by value by merlyn
in thread modify variable on pass by value by Anonymous Monk

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