> > I'm against using $a in the code examples, especially since your patch > > then makes it my($a), which will cause problems later on if sorting is > > involved. > > > > Or perhaps I shouldn't be going so far? > > I think so. The poor innocent $a shouldn't be punished because of > the sins of sort().
To word it differently: avoiding the use of $a because of the vagaries of sort() smells mildly of cargo cult programming. The advice should not be "avoid using $a anywhere because use of sort() might mess you up" but the other way round "if you use sort(), watch out for your use of $a in your sort routines". If you have lexicalized $a (or $b) in the same scope as your sort() is, the script will croak in compile time anyway. -- $jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/ # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'. # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
