in reply to functional functions

Near the beginning of perlfunc, there is a section called "Perl Functions by Category". When I was first learning perl, I read that section at least once a week for several months. The familiarity I got with the kinds of things that perl's builtins do was immediately useful whenever I had an unfamiliar job to do.

Familiarity is the key. If you never do any low-level socket programming in perl, you'll never use connect or recv. Knowing they exist as a group assures you that perl can handle a job of that kind and that there are likely some higher level ease-of-use modules.

Many perl functions are derived from unix library or system functions. Learning to use them in perl is a great education in unix. If you know unix, you have a head start on learning perl.

After Compline,
Zaxo

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Re^2: functional functions
by blazar (Canon) on May 30, 2007 at 09:32 UTC
    Many perl functions are derived from unix library or system functions. Learning to use them in perl is a great education in unix. If you know unix, you have a head start on learning perl.

    I second that and although for various reasons I've recently turned into a sort of self-unsatisfied Windows-kinda-guy who plans of turning back to Linux (and maybe *BSD) as much as possible, without ever finding the time to do so, basically I would describe myself as *NIX-oriented mind. However on the basis of a rational thinking rather than on that of an emotional one, I think that that kind of heritage in Perl is not that good... in fact as far as basic language features are concerned, I think it would be better for the language itself for it to be OS-agnostic not only in actual functionality, but even in look & feel. I think that they're trying to "correct" this bias for Perl 6.

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      This is not a flame. Re-read first line. And again. OS agnostic for the sake of being agnostic doesn't solve much. It's tried to be language agnostic, too. Now it's not recognizable to anybody- nobody wins. Yet another syntax to memorize and port to. But there's still time to be convinced, it's not out yet.
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        This is not a flame.

        Did I say so? I didn't mean to. If I implied that, then I apologize.

        Re-read first line. And again.

        First line in my browser read "Near the beginning of perlfunc, there is a section called "Perl Functions by Category". When I was first learning perl, I read that section at least": which part of it are you refering to?

        OS agnostic for the sake of being agnostic doesn't solve much.

        Well, I think there are some advantages: do not misunderstand me, I'm convinced that *NIX L&F both say in structure (e.g. the simplicity of the fork+exec scheme as opposed to an API with a bazillion parameters) and in UI is superior, and I'm happy that some aspects of Perl are inspired to it. Yet there are some common OS concepts that may be abstracted and already having a good model is not a valid excuse for not trying to devise an even better one that may better fit the tastes of people coming from different worlds. That's just my view however. Certainly I'm not Xah Lee!

        It's tried to be language agnostic, too.

        Huh?!? What, when, how?

        Yet another syntax to memorize and port to. But there's still time to be convinced, it's not out yet.

        I still don't understand. Are you talking 'bout Perl 6?

[reply]

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