use Perl

• why not attributes? (Score:1)

  by autarch (914)

  Attributes would be a much more elegant (and simple for you) solution here:
  
    my $a : watch;
  • Beccause I'm following the non-intrusive path. (Score:1)

    by arhuman (1672) on 2002.02.22 14:06 (#4934) Homepage Journal

    I'm mostly playing with the "non-intrusive" Idea,
    I mean look at the following code :
    
    #use MyDebug; my $a;#!watch($a)! for my $i (1..10) { $a*=$i; } print $a;
    This is perfectly valid code.
    Now If I uncomment the 'use Mydebug;' line it will alsos works,
    And I'll get a message each time $a is accessed.
    
    If I understand well the Attribute::Handlers module, there's no easy way to turn on/off the features.
    (There will be the 'use AttribDecl;' line and the code will be crippled with ': watch;')
    In the end the only solution I see will be to always use the AttrDecl modules and turn on/off the debug feature via a variable which is not much different to my mind from using the usual $DEBUG var with debug code or the way Carp::Assert works...
    
    The only usefulness would be, IMHO, the autotie usage which could be used behind the scene, but as I manage to do it 'by hand' and beccause as it's hidden, elegance/simplicity isn't a requirement (Did I really say that !?!?) I see no reason to add Attribute::Handlers to MyDebug's required modules.
    
    But as you're not the first person telling me that, I start to wonder if I don't miss something or even if this I'm the only one seeing the usefulness/beauty of the non-intrusive interface.
    
    

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    • Re:Beccause I'm following the non-intrusive path. (Score:1)

      by autarch (914)

      I think its just that your way looks like an icky hack, though I do see the value in being able to just not use your module and have the code still work.
      
      But appearances count ;)
      
      Plus with attributes typos will be caught (like "wathc") whereas if its in a comment there's no validation. So it has the additional nicety of being a bit more formal.
      • Re:Beccause I'm following the non-intrusive path. (Score:1)

        by arhuman (1672)

        But appearances count ;)
        
        Point taken...
        You're totally right on this.
        It's quite hard to find the balance between a simple clean syntax and a syntax which could be clearly distinguished from "normal" comments.
        I clearly emphazized the later...
        Any suggestion is welcome, I wonder if 'watch($a)' anywhere in a comment wouldn't be enough...
        
        BTW: What would be your proposition for this module's name ?