> -----Original Message----- > From: Larry Wall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 2:33 PM > To: Language List > Subject: Re: Semantics of vector operations > > > On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 03:21:01PM +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote: > : That said, I'm not sure how keen I am on the idea of "one-sided" > : vector operators. It seems to me that this is too big a > : semantic choice to make merely by omission of a single (and quite > : dainty) character. I'd rather express this by forcing a context > : on the operand. The precedent so far also seems to be a > : rule-of-thumb that "I have to write more when I want to be > : explicit". > > But I would argue that it's the vectorization of the argument that > is special, and that's precisely why it should only be used on the > argument that is to be considered "plural". The underlying psychology > here is that most people assume that all these operators take scalar > (singular) arguments. > > Now, a mathematician might assume otherwise, but said mathematician > will probably put "use vectorops" at the front and leave out all the > "dainty" characters from the get-go. >
Perhaps the right way to vectorize the arguments is to delimit them with vectorization markers? @a + >>$b<< =Austin
