Re^2: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages

But, paradoxically, even though it mimics human languages, humans seem rather prone to slip on Perl's use of context. In contrast, the lack of context dependance in other languages may be somewhat inconvenient but is not a banana peel. My point is to question the notion that this particular feature makes Perl somehow more in tune with the way humans think.

the lowliest monk

Comment on Re^2: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages

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Re^3: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by chromatic (Archbishop) on Apr 23, 2005 at 19:32 UTC
Funny, though, that you didn't write: My point are to questions the notion that this particular features make Perl somehow more in tune with the way human thinks. There are some corner cases in English where subject-verb number agreement is difficult, but I know a lot of people who do pretty well with it. Why should it be any more difficult?	[reply]
Re^4: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by tlm (Prior) on Apr 23, 2005 at 19:50 UTC
Maybe it is just as difficult, and that's precisely the problem. Just because some people can learn a particular set of rules and become proficient with them doesn't mean they constitute a good system; consider the Roman numerals, for example. For the most part I have become sufficiently accustomed to Perl's context scheme that I am not particularly inconvenienced by it, but I know many who struggle with it, and I can't help but notice the irony. Esprit de l'escalier: Another objection to the subject-verb agreement errors analogy is that such errors are benign, in the sense that they rarely, if ever, lead to serious misunderstandings (if they did they would have been weeded out of the language long before the appearance of the first grammarians). In contrast, context-related errors in Perl are not benign. the lowliest monk	[reply]
Re^5: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by TimToady (Parson) on Apr 23, 2005 at 20:12 UTC
Well, hey, it took me 14 years to notice the irony myself. I've always been kind of slow. Please do me a favor and read at least the Synopses on Perl 6 and tell me what ironies I'll be noticing 14 years from now. `:-)`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by stefp (Vicar) on Apr 30, 2005 at 16:48 UTC
Esprit de l'escalier In French, you would say esprit d'escalier because this kind of spirit has some "escalier" property. Esprit de l'escalier would refer to the spirit of some "escalier" made clear by the context. -- stefp	[reply]