- If you used the strict definition of witchcraft, you'd never get to burn anyone.
- suspected witches tended to give a lot of information that was never used.
- wondering whether a suspect is a witch is pointless, the answer is always yes.
- "Tie her up and throw her into the lake. If she drowns, the God did not want her to live because she was a witch. If she doesn't drown, she was using her dark powers and therefore is a witch and has to be burned."
- see 3.
- Who cares who's that? Burn her! She's a witch!
Jenda
Enoch was right!
Enjoy the last years of Rome.
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1) I thought about going above and beyond the 1692 Salem spec, but didn't want to confuse the matter. This is also why I omitted any reason for trial. I'd imagine these trials would have been thrown out in Appeals, anyway. Hearsay isn't evidence.
2) True. I wanted to cut to the chase, however..If a witch is a true witch, then the code works. If the witch is not a witch, but accused by virtue of being named in @ARGV[0], then, she might just as well be a witch, and therefore the code works. She must be burned.
3) Absolutely. I felt it important to go ahead and perform the test for reasons of code readibility, however. Conditional statements can be tricky, and being so explicit prevents a witch from tampering with the code.
4) Much like the drowning test for witches, algorithmic simplicity is a goal I try to strive for as well. I omitted any drowning test subroutines, which, I admit, does deviate slightly from the 1692 Salem spec, but I'm not aware of any direct evidence of drowning test.
5) Saw it, and agree!
6) I agree. All women who's named are subjected to this test must be witches, by mere virtue of needing to BE tested. My code is algorithmically perfect. We all know witches are a problem these days, and burning at the stake has gone somewhat out of fashion.. I hope to reverse these trends, as I oppose witches and witchcraft of any form. Being such brings me into favor with God, and ensures my next year's crops will be plentiful.
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1/ Always use strictures (use strict; use warnings;).
Actually, in this case, adding warnings would make the program spit out a warning if run without arguments. But it's arguable that the program is actually doing the right thing. It's a sign of a newbie to assume that slapping 'use strict' and/or 'use warnings' on a program magically increases the quality of the program - wearing seatbelts doesn't make you a better driver either. And note that slapping 'use strict' on this correct program actually prevents it from compiling. Doesn't seem like an improvement to me.
2/ $suspectedWitch is assigned a value which is never used.
Maybe you see a different program than I do, but I see $suspectedWitch being used in the print statements.
6/ No test is made to determine that a name has actually been passed on the command line.
In my universe if ($ARGV[0]) won't be true if there's nothing on the command line.
7/ Dates are better given using one of the ISO time/date formats to avoid confusion.
Not of course in the case of the Salem witch hunt. The ISO standard is a standard about the Gregorian calendar. But the colonies were still on a Julian calendar by 1692.
And after 7 points, you still fail to spot the non lexical variables.
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[d/l] |
The only thing I forgot to do is include a Perl module that gives people a sense of humor... Jesus..
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That something a witch would say, burn him, buuuuuuuuurn him ;p
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