Re^4: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages

In a language like Perl, it's not clear to me that the distinction between "array" and "array ref" is a useful one.
IMO its a pretty useful distinction. For instance:
my @array;
my $arrayref=[]
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I should probably let the perl 6 experts talk about this, but as I remember it the distinction is being downplayed somewhat for Perl 6. People need to use references so often that in Perl 6 you're going to tend to get references to things by default, rather than as a special case that you need to ask for.

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Re: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by jonadab (Parson) on Apr 25, 2005 at 12:41 UTC
as I remember it the distinction is being downplayed somewhat for Perl 6. People need to use references so often that in Perl 6 you're going to tend to get references to things by default, rather than as a special case that you need to ask for. There is some truth in what you say, but I'm not sure it really applies in this context. Perl6 will still have the distinction between the reference and the thing being referenced. Yes, the basic shorthand dereferencing notation will dereference as many levels as necessary to get down to the referenced object (though I assume there will be a way to dereference just one level, if that's what you need to do), and yes, some builtins will handle things a bit differently, but the distinction between a reference and the thing that it references is certainly not going away. Perl6 will not be Perl5, but it will still be Perl. "In adjectives, with the addition of inflectional endings, a changeable long vowel (Qamets or Tsere) in an open, propretonic syllable will reduce to Vocal Shewa. This type of change occurs when the open, pretonic syllable of the masculine singular adjective becomes propretonic with the addition of inflectional endings." — Pratico & Van Pelt, BBHG, p68	[reply]

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Re: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages
by jonadab (Parson) on Apr 25, 2005 at 12:41 UTC

as I remember it the distinction is being downplayed somewhat for Perl 6. People need to use references so often that in Perl 6 you're going to tend to get references to things by default, rather than as a special case that you need to ask for.

There is some truth in what you say, but I'm not sure it really applies in this context. Perl6 will still have the distinction between the reference and the thing being referenced. Yes, the basic shorthand dereferencing notation will dereference as many levels as necessary to get down to the referenced object (though I assume there will be a way to dereference just one level, if that's what you need to do), and yes, some builtins will handle things a bit differently, but the distinction between a reference and the thing that it references is certainly not going away. Perl6 will not be Perl5, but it will still be Perl.

"In adjectives, with the addition of inflectional endings, a changeable long vowel (Qamets or Tsere) in an open, propretonic syllable will reduce to Vocal Shewa. This type of change occurs when the open, pretonic syllable of the masculine singular adjective becomes propretonic with the addition of inflectional endings." — Pratico & Van Pelt, BBHG, p68

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