On Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:35:50 +0100, Carl Mäsak wrote:
> Moritz (>):
>> So Larry and Patrick developed the idea of creating an adverb on the
>> test operator instead:
>>
>> $x == 1e5 :ok('the :ok makes this is a test');
>
> I'm trying to explain to myself why I don't like this idea at all. I'm
> only partially successful. Other people seem to have no problem with it,
> so I might just be wrong, or part of a very small, ignorable minority.
> :)
I find myself echoing you. I don't have the language design skills others
are displaying here. I can only evaluate this from an educator's point of
view and say that the P5 syntax of
is $x, 42, 'Got The Answer';
is just about the conceivable pinnacle of elegance for at least that form
of question. (Compare, e.g., the logorrhoea of Java tests.) I do not see
how I could tell a student with a straight face that the P6 proposal is an
improvement, at which point the conversation would devolve into a
defensive argument I do not want to have.
I get that 'is' is already taken and we do not want the grammar to engage
in Clintonesque parsing when it encounters the token. Okay. But how do I
justify the new syntax to a student? What are they getting that makes up
for what looks like a fall in readability?
--
Peter Scott
http://www.perlmedic.com/
http://www.perldebugged.com/
