On Fri, Feb 16, 2001 at 10:45:27PM -0800, Peter Scott wrote:
> Help me out here. You're saying:
<snip>
User: perl -w myprogram.pl
Perl: Name "main::x" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
Use of uninitialized value in division (/) at myprogram.pl line 5.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 10.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 11.
Use of uninitialized value at myprogram.pl line 13.
Newbies don't write one-liners. Newbies tend to write their programs
in one big chunk and then try to run it. Faced with a daunting list
like that (that represents a badly written loop) a lone newbie might
become discouraged. However, their program might run Just Fine.
I don't know which is worse, not seeing the warnings or being flooded
with them. Neither is good, though. But having warnings on by
default we're just trading one for the other.
> Oh well, then we should call the new executable 'p' instead of 'perl'.
Don't laugh, I've seen people do even more rediculous shell aliasing
for similar results.
> > > >Code style is a very, very emotional and personal issue. Adding any
> > > >default enforcement is going to piss off lots and lots of people.
> > >
> > > Just like the lack of it has already pissed off lots of people :-)
> >
> >Yes, but like it or not, they have over 10 years of precedent behind
> >them. We're used to this situation, the screaming has already been
> >done, the scabs are healed over. Let's not pick at them.
>
> I've always picked at 'em... in any case, the mandate for Perl 6 design was
> to consider everything fair game, within user-defined reason.
Yes, but its questionable which one is "better". Given a fresh start
writing a new language, I'd definately say warnings by default. I'd
also say arrays should start at one, not zero. But we've got a large
and diverse community to deal with.
This is very much a 6.0 of one, 12.0/2.0 of another type of situation.