I don't think that's the type of closure BrowserUk is referring to. Think more of this perl 5 code: 

sub genclosure {
  my $bar;
  return sub { $bar++; }
}

[download]
Each time you call genclosure, you get a new closure, a new state variable. You don't reuse the previously existing state variable.

So I would have to agree with BrowserUk's "very carefully" statement. The same as I would use your perl5 (global) closure code - very carefully. That said, I have probably about a half-dozen or so places where I need or want to cache data globally in my projects at work, so this would be very nice syntactical sugar for that. However, I also generate a few closures where this new idea could easily bite a junior programmer in the arse when they wonder why their data isn't returning properly. ("How did that counter get so high already?")

That said, I also generally avoided static in C as well, so that's not really surprising for me. After all, one generally looks at programming tasks from the basis of their experience - if it looks like a nail, that may be because all you have is a hammer.

Update: TimToady's response has cleared things up a bit, thankfully. It was looking a bit grim for state - although there is still some care to be taken. I'll have to think if I can figure out where I'd use this feature, if anywhere.

In reply to Re^3: How will you use state declared variables in Perl6? by Tanktalus
in thread How will you use state declared variables in Perl6? by Limbic~Region

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