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As usual, I'm overstating the case to knock a few neurons loose, but the truth is usually somewhere in the muddle, uh, middle.
Larry Wall -
Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',..). Once you have that, there's only security through obscurity.
Larry Wall
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We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short circuit. :-/
Larry Wall -
Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly...
Larry Wall -
I surely do hope that's a syntax error.
Larry Wall -
I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon.
Larry Wall -
If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.
Larry Wall -
There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.
Larry Wall
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[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...]
Larry Wall -
Orthogonality for orthogonality's sake is not something I'm keen on.
Larry Wall -
Well, enough clowning around. Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as'Unix'.
Larry Wall -
For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words.
Larry Wall -
Be consistent.
Larry Wall -
Chip Salzenberg sent me a complete patch to add System V IPC (msg, sem and shm calls), so I added them. If that bothers you, you can always undefine them in config.sh.
Larry Wall
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I dunno. Perhaps you should be happy that I have a policy of refraining from grumbling about handicapped operating systems.
Larry Wall -
But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for leaving capabilities out of Perl.
Larry Wall -
I suppose you could switch grammars once you've seen 'use strict subs'.
Larry Wall -
Magically turning people's old scalar contexts into list contexts is a recipe for several kinds of disaster.
Larry Wall -
And besides, if Perl really takes off in the Windows space, I think the rest of us would just as soon have a double-agent within ActiveState.
Larry Wall -
The court finds everyone to be in contempt (including himself :-), and orders everyone sentenced to five years hard labor. (Working on Perl, of course.)
Larry Wall
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I note that the Python folks still think they like JPython. I wonder how long that will last?
Larry Wall -
But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what people can get used to, and what they can even learn to like. (It just takes some people longer than others. :-)
Larry Wall -
It's all magic.
Larry Wall -
That's a valid argument. I just don't think it's valid enough.
Larry Wall