On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 08:54:52PM -0400, Matt Diephouse wrote: : Damian Conway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: : > Larry Wall wrote: : > : > > On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 12:22:07PM -0400, Matt Diephouse wrote: : > > : Does this mean private methods will be called like this? : > > : : > > : ./:method() : > > : > > No, I think that's still just : > > : > > .:method() : > : > This missing design rationale here is that the colon acts as part of the unary : > operator: : > : > ./ unary public-method-call-on-invocant : > : > .: unary private-method-call-on-invocant : : This introduces some asymmetry with accessors, which are currently : $.attr and $:attr. I think in this case it's more consistent to use : the $/attr for public attributes. Unfortunately, I find that rather : ugly, which is why I gave up trying to find a secondary sigil for : public methods called on the invocant in the first place. : : In other words, I don't see any solution here that is less than ideal.
I think almost all internal access to one's own attributes will be via $.foo and $:bar. Outside the class there is already a complete asymmetry between public and private methods, so there's no reason to invent a perfect encoding for the few cases where it matters. $.foo is good enough to indicate that there are probably external methods, and $:bar is good enough to indicate that there probably aren't. Larry
