use Perl

• Syntax (Score:1)

  by stu42j (6348) on 2007.09.28 10:03 (#58099) Homepage Journal

  He is mostly just complaining about the syntax. So, he is saying that:

  ${$arrayRef}[0]=4;

  Is uglier than (I agree):

  array[0]=4;

  And

  $x=func(1,\@array);

  Is uglier than (meh):

  x=func(1,array)

  Reference handling is one of the few things I really don't like about Perl. In a high level language like Perl, you shouldn't have to worry about what's a reference what isn't (most of the time). It goes against DWIM.
  
  He also complains about having to change the prefix on the array to access the individual element. Once you "get" it, it really seems like the right way to do it but it gets ugly quickly once references are involved. I am willing to give up context-based sigils for simpler reference-handling in Perl 6.

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:1)

    by phaylon (6115)

    Honestly, I don't see a problem with the references. You can always write $foo->[3] to dereference the array. And I really don't agree that references and non-references should be interchangable. Since non-refs and refs behave differently, you _have_ to differentiate them. Otherwise this would just scream "action at a distance" to me.

    I can however, understand why non-Perl people have problems with the changing sigils. Because they aren't used to it. Personally, I like it, but I can see why it was decid

    --
    Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by stu42j (6348)

      Yeah, it seems like most Lanuage A is better than Lanuage B arguments are really just Lanauge B is different from what I'm used to.
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by phaylon (6115)

        Exactly :) That's why I bow before those people who try to transform those silly discussions into "I like $x about $y" and "I hate $x about $y" thoughts. Those are the rants and raves everybody can learn something from. Especially if they are written by people who actually work with that language of course :)

        --
        Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
    • Dereferencing (was: Syntax) (Score:1)

      by jplindstrom (594)

      Well, when it comes to dereferencing syntax this isn't a problem:

      my @names = keys %$name_age;

      but this is clearly uglier than it should be:

      my @names = keys %{$self->name_age};

      especially when combined with other curly constructs.
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Aristotle (5147)

        What’s really annoying is that there’s not even any reason for the prototype on keys (nor, really, on most other functions). Even if keys $foo will blow up at compile time, keys %$foo won’t – but that doesn’t mean the reference is a hash ref. The only reason for keys to have a prototype is because of how the parser works; a mere artefact.

        Context-sensitive sigils worked for Perl 4 because it doesn’t have references; in Perl 5 they are a pointless wart.
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by runrig (3385)

        $x=func(1,\@array);
    ...
        x=func(1,array)

    I like that you have to specify that you're passing a reference. I like that by default, perl flattens arrays into the argument list. I seem to do that more often than passing in references. When I was playing with Ruby, a gotcha for me was that you had to add extra syntax to flatten the array in an argument list. So what are these people complaining about? You gotta have it one way or the other, I like the perl way, but I could adjust to t
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by runrig (3385)

      Besides, you could say:

      $x = func(1, @array);
      
      sub func {
      my ( $x, @array ) = @_;
      ...
      }

      You only get into trouble this way if you want to pass in more than one array or hash.
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by runrig (3385)

        Though I forgot one of the points of this whole thread was about passing by reference...oh well. I hardly ever want to do that anyway except in OO programming. And in perl, objects are always references.