Throwing an error is different from throwing a warning. I'm proposing that numification or stringification of a reference should be considered a runtime error, should die(), set $@ and all that jazz. Unfortunately, the meme of my $x = Foo->new; print "$x\n"; is so ingrained that it's an impossible solution to propose.

Throwing a warning is just plain old annoying. Now, making it an optional warning wouldn't be a bad idea.

My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re^9: The trap of reference numification by dragonchild
in thread The trap of reference numification by samtregar

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