First of all, ihb is not someone who wouldn't read the C docs if the Perl docs told him to. He is arguing on behalf of beginners, and those without a C background, etc.

Second, your analogy has a fallacy: algebra is a pre-req for calculus, but C is not a pre-req for Perl. A person going into Perl first of all languages is not expected to know C (or sed, or awk, or sh!). Therefore, depending on just what behavior it is they have to refer to C for, they might not understand what it is they're reading, because it'd be in a C context, not a Perl context. Besides, how much of Perl behaves like some language from which it is derived? Why don't we bundle the docs from those other languages with Perl, so Perl's docs can merely cross-reference theirs?

One problem I see is that while Perl is written in C, Perl does things differently than C. For one, Perl handles this pre-inc and post-inc thing differently. The documentation says the behavior is undefined, but it had better NOT say the behavior is undefined, "just like in C", because it is obviously not. I think Perl's docs need updating, in this case. I think the behavior is definable, we just haven't written it down to define it.

Instead of yelling at the original poster for venturing into the forbidden zone... I don't know. Something. Just don't chastise him for experimenting with the language and reporting his findings. He's learning. Let him learn.

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

In reply to Re^4: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by japhy
in thread Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by barrachois

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