Fun indeed! Interesting philosophy. Undefined but consistent is oxymoronic, if its consistent (not just constrained) then its defined. The subtlety is that we _really_ mean not defined across platforms and implementations. The platform, processor architecture, C compiler used and a host of other things add variables (that may as well be random) into the equation that defines the statements behaviour.

I applaud the determination and curiosity of the OP, its a fascinating tale, and only misguided in retrospect of knowing that Perl itself does not know the answer. If nothing else a great amount is learned about Perls treatment of variables. On another note I see no reason for Perl to maintain this. A language is what you DEFINE it to be. Perhaps Perl 6 will be bold enough to say 'this is the order of evaluation, this is the behaviour, anything else is wrong' and have done with it. IANA compiler writer btw, dragon books scare me, maybe I'm missing a really good reason, but in my mind its just a question of definition and sticking to it. On another note, Barrachois approach is typical empirical programming, good stuff, tweak it and see, try and break it and find out how it works. If you never encountered a problem like that before you wouldn't know what 'Behaviour is undefined' even means in the documentation.

In reply to Re: Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by andyf
in thread Quantum Weirdness and the Increment Operator by barrachois

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