UPDATE: I surely do not intend to write something like my $error = 3.1415927->minus( 22->divide( 7 ) )->abs();. (Come on, BUK! even from you this example is quite polemic... ;-)

hmm some brainstorming

  • it's easier to read (and write)

     $ar->[$x][$y][$z]->push("element") than  push @{$ar->[$x][$y][$z]}, "element"

    The flow is in one left-to-right direction and doesn't jump around, the association is much more evident.

  • this clear association make it much easier to parse (statically) and to design help systems in IDEs, interactively popping up the documentation for a method.

  • method calls often allow cascading, like this enabling more expressive code.

  • from a learners and documentation perspective its much easier to check the method of an object than browsing through docs to find the function and search what it does combined with a special datatype.

  • it's easier to introspect (dynamically) which methods are possible for an object, even using a REPL which tab-expands to possible methods (that's really a powerful feature in the Python shell)

  • Extending new methods which only work with special data-types (like adding ruby's each-behaviour to arrays) is easier and cleaner than prototyping a function each() ¹)

  • it gets easier to port JS or Python code to Perl, strengthening the powerful future of our beloved language. ;)

  • look at the arguments from the Perl6 designers ...

  • TIMTOWTDI =)

    Cheers Rolf

    ¹) yes I know I could use "for", "each" was just an example, but please try to design a function which is restricted to arrayrefs, thats really far more complicated.

    UPDATE: corrected code and added further explanations in italics.

    In reply to Re^2: What are the drawbacks of autobox? by LanX
    in thread What are the drawbacks of autobox? by LanX

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