On Wed, Apr 17, 2002 at 10:23:42AM -0700, David Wheeler wrote:
> On 4/17/02 9:11 AM, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> claimed:
>
> > I find it amazing that someone can make a statement like "99% of the
> > time, people leave whitespace of the aggregate and the index", just
> > based on personal experience.
> >
> > Based on the code *I* have written in the past 20 years, more than
> > 99% of the time people do use whitespace between the aggregate and
> > the index. ;-)
>
> Must be a European thing. ;-)
>
> > Seeing $hash{foo}{bar}{baz} all over,justmakeswewanttoignoreallwhitescape.
> > Butthatissohardtoread.
>
> Personally, I find C<$hash{foo}{bar}{baz}> a lot easier to read than
> "justmakeswewanttoignoreallwhitescape". The braces break it up nicely.
> However, once I start to see code like that, I start to think it's time for
> a redesign. I don't much care for seeing a hash access go more than two
> layers deep.
I agree. C<$hash{foo}{bar}{baz}> is horribly ugly. Your solution
is a redesign. My solution is to use whitespace. The latter is
far easier than the former.
> > Using ()'s doesn't mean the parser suddenly understands %hash {key}
> > is an indexing operator, so that's not going to solve much. :-(
>
> That's true. But the trade-off is significant and, IME, totally worthwhile.
> Braces with whitespace in front of them are now always closures. This adds a
> great deal of power and flexibility to the design.
I think the gain is just the option of not having to write () in if.
If () was still mandatory, there would be no ambiguity when a block
is a hash index and when it cannot be - which means it has to be a
closure.
> But if some people just
> are lamenting the loss of the whitespace in hash accesses because that's the
> standard that C set long ago, the, to quote Larry,
It's not just C. It's also any language than I've programmed in.
It's also a rather significant break from 14 years of perl.
Abigail
