Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon skribis 2004-04-16 13:17 (-0700):
> Clever definition of the colon operator, or creation of a
> bareword-quoting operator, would allow you to use "barewords" anywhere
> you wanted to.
Defining ` to be a bareword quoting operator would be only one step away
from what I suggested initially:
1. %hash`key
2. %array`5
3. :key`value
4. say `hello;
This would make it like <<>> now, but allowing only one bareword, and
only if it is simple (identifier-ish). Oh, and much easier to read and
type :)
I like the idea of making a bareword quoting operator!
(But only 1 and 2 really matter to me. 1 more than 2.)
> To get an item out of a hash, you can write %varname{"key"}.
> You can also write %varname<<key>> if there aren't any spaces in
> the key. Finally, if the key doesn't have any characters in it
> except for letters, numbers and underscores, you can write
> %varname`key.
That's not a great way to teach a langage, and for a reference manual, I
think separation into three paragraphs will make things much clearer.
Or a table, like in perlcheat :)
Basically, if ` is made a generic bareword quoter, <<>> is its plural
form. That makes it easier to explain.
> I'm going to throw in one more argument at this point. It's based on a
> game you all played as children: Which One Of These Doesn't Belong?
>
> &stuff(1)
> @stuff[1]
> %stuff{1}
> %stuff«1»
> %stuff`1
Hm...
print if not $foo;
if (not $foo) { print }
print unless $foo;
unless ($foo) { print }
$foo or print;
And there are many more examples in Perl. I personally like having two
ways to write exactly the same thing. If the two ways are very
different and one is because of that much easier than the other, I like
having the alternative even more.
Juerd
