On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 06:35:38PM +0100, Thomas Sandlaà wrote:
: Each of these comes with a corresponding postcicumfix dereferencer.
: & with .()
: @ with .[]
: % with .<> and .ÂÂ
% with .{} (plus .<> and .ÂÂ as syntactic sugar)
: >Maybe now is the time to figure out what they *do* mean.
:
: I see them more as part of the type declaration. So that
:
: my Int $var;
:
: could also be written in the extreme as
:
: my var is Scalar of Int;
:
: Unless the parser needs the sigil for actually finding the name
: that is declared?
They are considered part of the name, though that could be hidden
by the syntax (as can the rest of the type system, as you point out).
: In any case I would like all sigils to be optional as it is the
: case for & and :: already. Of course they *are* needed to disambiguate
: when needed. After all---as Larry and others use to say---the "type
: system is optional" and "everything is fair if you predeclare".
Yes, I think I'm already on record as saying I expect one of the first
Perl 6 variants to be a "use sigilless". We're certainly throwing a
large sop into the sigilless camp with "{foo}" closure interpolation.
On the other hand, I think the majority of English speakers find the
sigils psychologically useful, and will continue to use them. And
we do use them for a lot of disambiguation in the grammar, which a
sigilless variant would have to solve rather differently, with various
psycholinguistic complications.
But if I'd been born in a different hemisphere, I'd probably rather write
é += æç;
than
$é += $æç;
: The above lifts the question up to the type system which in my eyes
: needs some more clarifications. In that sense it's actually not optional
: at all, but *defines* the behaviour of the whole Perl6 language. It's
: only optional on the sytactic level, or better gives very flexible defaults.
You've hit the nail on the head. The Perl 6 ideal is to allow the
user to choose which color of rose-tinted glasses they'd like to view
harsh reality with, while allowing interoperability at a deep level
with people who have chosen differently colored rose-tinted classes.
On the other hand, I recognize that no amount of rose-colored glasses
will ever allow
method æ ($æ) {...}
to interoperate with Indo-Europeans.
: Reading about A. J. H. Simons's "Theory of Classification" has made
: me a true admirer of the design of Perl6 as it is right now.
: (See http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~ajhs/classify/index.html). I would
: really like to hear how this works out on Perl6! Perhaps we could
: interesst some students or researcher of theoretical computer science
: to write a paper or so?
That would be cool. I'd like to see our community build up a pool of
theoreticians who are not allergic to the practicalities of building a
language for ordinary people to think in. It is my persistent belief
(and fond hope) that theory and practice don't always have to pull in
opposite directions.
Larry
