Perl is worse! (was: Python is Wierd!)

[Paul Foley]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2000 01:54:55 GMT, Courageous  wrote:

>> >    Actually I think it would be easier for non-programmers to
>> >learn a language if it has strict typing.
>> 
>> I concur. In non-programming, life is strictly typed. Allowed
>> operations are determined by the type of the object. You can't
>> make a phone call on a waffle-iron.

> This is a conceptualization issue, and I suspect to a degree,
> false. If "x" is merely a label, one can imagine x labeling
> 3 or x labelling red quite easily. Your analogy works because

Yes, but you know what the labels "telephone" and "waffle iron"
conventionally refer to.  Certainly you can play Humpty Dumpty games
("words mean what I want them to mean"), and choose to use "waffle
iron" to mean what I mean by "telephone", and subsequently claim that
you _can_ make a phone call on a waffle iron, but that's not actually
disagreeing with what <unattributed author of the above> said.

-- 
C/C++/Java/Perl/etc are for people who want to make things that work.
Common Lisp is for people who want to make things that don't break.
                                                         -- Erik Naggum
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