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djberg96 (2603)

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Journal of djberg96 (2603)

Wednesday September 15, 2004

11:01 AM

Simplicity (was Smalltalk vs Perl)

[ #20893 ]

Hm...do I want to continue this argument? Oh, what the heck - I'm bored.

A couple folks over on Artima have jumped on me for the "Perl is generally easier for newbs than Smalltalk" comment I made in Ovid's journal, which I was somewhat surprised at.

James Robertson's comments can be found here and here. He mostly seems to focus on sigils.

It seems a strange argument to use the number of sigils as the basis for the "ease" of a language. Your average Perl newb will probably only see about 3 - @, %, $, plus 2 special variables, @_ and $_.

What I guess James doesn't know, or doesn't realize, is that in the case of @, % and $, they are actually meant to *help* readability. If a newb sees @, he knows it's an array. If he sees %, he knows it's a hash, etc.

Unfortunately, I never completed my PhD thesis on "Computer Programming and the Effect of Sigils on the Human Psyche", so I can't say with total certainty that this helps Perl newbs along or not, but I suspect it does. I think it's only when you get into advanced Perl, and advanced data structures in Perl, that the syntax (and sigils) start to get overbearing.

Once I became more versed with Perl, the sigils started to get in the way, and that's one of the reasons why I do more Ruby these days than Perl. I started to realize that I was only using scalars the vast majority of the time anyway, and that scalar could be anything - a simple scalar or a quadruply nested hash reference. The sigils no longer helped, and I found myself using a GUI debugger just to understand the structure's layout. But, that's another story...

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To an extent... (Score:1)

by phillup (4419)

What I guess James doesn't know, or doesn't realize, is that in the case of @, % and $, they are actually meant to *help* readability. If a newb sees @, he knows it's an array. If he sees %, he knows it's a hash, etc.

To an extent, this is very true. If you have some experience programming.

But, if you don't have any/much experience programming... then this gets very confusing:

$hash{element}

Because a newbie sees the sigil and thinks: scalar

Then along comes:
$hash

And he thinks: same scalar

And it takes
- Re:To an extent... (Score:2)
  
  by brian_d_foy (44)
  
  But the sigil is right: $hash{element} and $hash are both scalars. I don't have a huge issue teaching this because most people get it once they know the rule: $ is one thing, @ can be many things, and % is a hash. I emphasize those points, and it works.
  
  Most people we teach don't get $hash and $hash{element} confused either. One doesn't have a curly brace after it. This is another thing we emphasize, and we find it very easy to teach.
  
  I can see the problem for people who teach themselves Perl from the
  - Re:To an extent... (Score:1)
    
    by phillup (4419)
    
    Most people we teach don't get $hash and $hash{element} confused either. One doesn't have a curly brace after it. This is another thing we emphasize, and we find it very easy to teach.
    
    Yep. Makes perfect sense to me. I agree totally.
    
    But... I've got some customers that, after a week, still couldn't tell the difference between those two variables. They (mostly) get the scalar / hash thing... and getting an element of a hash.
    
    But as soon as you give them (the scalar and the hash) both the same name, they fre
    - Re:To an extent... (Score:2)
      
      by brian_d_foy (44)
      
      Well, we explicitly tell them that you can have different variable types with the same name. When we introduced arrays and hashes, we hammer this into their heads.
      
      You already know they are going to have trouble with that stuff, so you head it off before they have a chance to get confused. :)
I can use any name (Score:2)

by brian_d_foy (44)

I don't care so much about sigils as type identifiers, but I absolutely love the freedom they give me to name my variable anything I like.

I still have bad nightmares about trying to create a variable named "count" in python. :)
I still like the sigils (Score:2)

by TeeJay (2309)

If you name your variables sensibly it should be clear what they are, the sigils help with the context.
Something I do habitually is to UpperCase objects and compound the name of a variable with what its used for e.g. copy_of_Foo or Foo_remote
Never had a problem, so much so in fact that I find myself needing comments less and less (except when looking at perl golf or scary math).

--

@JAPH = qw(Hacker Perl Another Just);
print reverse @JAPH;