-- On Fri, 14 Mar 2003 10:08:15 Larry Wall wrote: >On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 07:36:00PM -0800, Brent Dax wrote: >: I think that there should be two types of arg typing[1]: 'strict' and >: 'loose'. Strict arg typing doesn't coerce, except to turn subclasses >: into superclasses; loose arg typing, on the other hand, coerces whenever >: possible. The mechanism for choosing between strict and loose arg >: typing should be under the caller's control, not the callee's. (The >: callee decides what types they want, and the caller decides how to >: create those types. This seems consistent with Perl's philosophy of >: being flexible and making B&D optional.) > >Precisely. The parameter types are completely invariant for the >callee. They are optionally invariant for the caller depending on some >kind of stricture. But I darn well want the naive user to be able to >pass a Scalar to an Int parameter and have it DWTM without them knowing >a blessed thing about these mysterious entities called "classes". > >We've got to keep the entry ramp low, or Perl is no longer Perl. > >The real question is whether this particular stricture is part of the >default "use strict" that classes and modules assume. There are >decent arguments on both sides of that one, but just to mollify Damian >I'm inclined to come down on the strict side for that. >
I'll put my vote down on strictness (as in "complain about mismatch as soon as possible") by default. But just as prototypes are ignored when we prepend & in Perl 5 can't some similar frobobnitz say "But on this here call, wait till runtime and coerce if needed"? After all, it's not the kind of thing a callee should dictate, but the caller. >This week. :-) I'm easy. -Erik > >Larry > ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
