use Perl

• HTADD (Score:1, Interesting)

  by pudge (1)

  Hmmmmm. Does this mean that the new Perl is not appreciated so much?
• Re:HTADD (Score:1, Interesting)

  by jon peterson (30)

  Err, I think it means no one has worked out what all the new stuff actually does yet. I mean, what _does_ our() do and when do I want to use it?
• Re:HTADD (Score:1, Interesting)

  by jns (40)

  Hmmmmm. Does this mean that the new Perl is not appreciated so much?

  I would suggest that some of it people dont even know about - the autovivification of filehandles isnt even mentioned in the open entry in perlfunc where it should be for instance. Not everyone reads p5p. Or even the Changes file for that matter ;-{
• appreciated? fully understood? (Score:1, Interesting)

  by Bumppo (57)

  Outside of p5p and the standard development channels, which are more information that most people need, I've yet to run across an executive summary of what's changed (such as www.perl.com has been promising).
  
  The only place I know to point people wondering if they should grab the new release is the new perldelta, which as far as I know, one only gets when one downloads the new release. And even that's more information than a lot of people need.
  
  nat
• Re:HTADD (Score:1, Interesting)

  by Abigail (26)

  I mean, what _does_ our() do and when do I want to use it?

  Well, our() was introduced because it saves you from typing one line. Making the already confusing scoping rules of my vs. local even more confusing to beginners was well worth the saving of typing use vars. Never leave something out of the core that is already in a module (or pragma)!.

  For the same reason, perl 5.6 has symbolic chmod and the ?? operator. Oh, wait. Not quite. Those would actually be useful, add something to perl, not confuse
• Re:HTADD (Score:1, Interesting)

  by Simon (89)

  I'm pretty sure symbolic chmod is in a module, Abigail. You wrote it.
• Re:appreciated? fully understood? (Score:1, Interesting)

  by jns (40)

  I've yet to run across an executive summary of what's changed (such as www.perl.com has been promising).

  I would take a look at http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/04/whats new.html [perl.com] Cause its there now
• Re:appreciated? fully understood? (Score:1, Interesting)

  by pudge (1)

  I printed the entire executive summary from Sarathy (the bullet points, anyway) on Perl News [perl.org], and it also made its way over to use Perl [perl.org].
• about warnings.pm (Score:1, Interesting)

  by japhy (90)

  I don't think it's complete enough. I'd like to see a sophisticated warnings handler. Something not unlike my Warnings.pm module. It's a priority-based error handler. I'm thinking of adding diagnostics.pm-like POD handlers into, so that warnings can be expanded on by the module (I'm just not sure yet how to handle it). I'm also thinking of making it capable of package-wide warning silence. It's on [pobox.com] my web site.

  --
  Jeff japhy Pinyan
  Perl, regex, and perl hacker
• my take on 5.6 (Score:1, Interesting)

  by orabidoo (111)

  looking at the main new features of perl 5.6:

  • unicode support: it's a good thing, and not intrusive: it's off unless I "use utf8".
  • lvalue subs: not really important; I can see it being used in methods, i.e allowing $object->method = $value, rather than the usual $object->method("value"). OTOH, that throws encapsulation out the window.
  • improved threading, and win32 fork emulation. I dislike both threads and win32, so no comment. If peopel find it useful, it's good, I just hope it doesn't bloat perl
• The kewlest feature is ... *ta-da* lvalueble subs (Score:1, Interesting)

  by niklas (133)

  Dunna what I'm gonna use it for but do think it is really cool to be able to write something like my_sub( 42 ) = 12 ; /N
• Re:my take on 5.6 (Score:1, Interesting)

  by the way (155)

  lvalue subs: not really important; I can see it being used in methods, i.e allowing $object->method = $value, rather than the usual $object->method("value"). OTOH, that throws encapsulation out the window
  
  I agree with everything you said, except this... How does methods as lvalues through encapsulation out the window? I think the opposite--methods as lvalues allow you to change the interface anytime, as long as you ensure that your method ends up returning the thing you want changed.
  
  Having said tha
• Re: lvalueble subs (Score:1, Interesting)

  by grantm (164)

  I may be completely wrong on this but one target audience for this feature is probably people doing Win32 COM/OLE Automation from Perl.
  
  Under VB (which is often used for code samples in COM documentation) the lines between methods and properties are really blurred. So being able to call a method to get a property value and then assign to the method to update the property might be convenient.