blazar has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

One part of Perl I've hardly ever seen mentioned, and most importantly used, in current discussions since I've come to it, that is about 5.6.1 time, is formats. Often I could see alternative modules suggested instead. And AFAIK they're going away in Perl6 as well.

Now, I've just noticed that both 5.9.1's perldelta page and 5.9.2's one mention "several formats improvements". So with no attitude I feel like asking: is there really still any need for active development regarding them, because I thought this was not the case, but the circumstance under consideration may suggest I'm plainly wrong...

Just curious...

2005-09-29 Retitled by g0n, as per Monastery guidelines
Original title: 'Q: re bleedperl && formats'

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Q: re bleadperl && formats
by hv (Prior) on Sep 27, 2005 at 15:57 UTC

    And AFAIK they're going away in Perl6 as well.

    Formats are not going away in Perl6, rather they are a) being moved out of the core into a module, and b) changing radically.

    Damian wrote the spec for the module, and has already implemented it in perl5: see Perl6::Form.

    Hugo

[reply]
Re: Q: re bleadperl && formats
by Anonymous Monk on Sep 27, 2005 at 14:55 UTC
    is there really still any need for active development regarding them

    Perl5 development doesn't involve a grand master scheme, cooked up by Larry, written down in holy scrolls, and carried out by minions.

    No. Perl5 development is done by whoever wants to, and those people work in areas they choose. I know of only one Perl programmer who often uses formats - and he finds them important enough to maintain and enhance them.

    That's how perl5 development works. It's not about by standers having important thoughts about what's important and what isn't. No, it's just a (small) bunch of people doing what they think is important.

[reply]
      Of course this is not specific of Perl, but typical of free or open source software developement, and it makes perfect sense. Thank you for answering...
[reply]
Re: Q: re bleadperl && formats
by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Sep 27, 2005 at 15:24 UTC
    "several formats improvements"
    That's in the sense of 'several bug fixes', not 'several new features'

    Dave.

[reply]
      That's in the sense of 'several bug fixes', not 'several new features'
      Hmmm... from the two above mentioned pages:

      Formats

      Formats were improved in several ways. A new field, ^*, can be used for variable-width, one-line-at-a-time text. Null characters are now handled correctly in picture lines. Using @# and ~~ together will now produce a compile-time error, as those format fields are incompatible. perlform has been improved, and miscellaneous bugs fixed.

      and

      Formats

      In addition to bug fixes, format's features have been enhanced. See perlform.

      respectively.
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