Re: Sane "+" string concat proposal

[John Porter]

Nathan Wiger wrote:
> string concatenation would be acheived by the
> *combination* of "" and +. 
>    $string3 = "$string1" + "$string2";
> Here's the key: The quotes are REQUIRED. If you left them
> off, you'd get numeric addition. There is no magic type 
> inference.

That, imho, is bending way too far in the wrong direction,
just for the sake of having a "+" operator that seems to DWIM
on both strings and numbers.  By that logic, we should dispense
with cmp, eq, lt, etc. and replace them with
        "$a" <=> "$b"
        "$a" == "$b"
        "$a" < "$b"
etc.  There really is no inherent benefit in having "+" mean
concat in addition to, uh, addition, and it seems to be causing
an undue amount of consternation.  Certainly "+" is no more
intuitive than "##" or "cc" or "cat".

I also don't like the special status accorded the the left operand
in your proposal.  Seems unecessarily capricious and restricting.


-- 
John Porter

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The satellites are out tonight
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