Perl is worse!

[Grant Edwards]

In article <slrn8o397m.3ok.grey at teleute.rpglink.com>, Steve Lamb wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Jul 2000 14:27:58 GMT, Grant Edwards <ge at nowhere.none> wrote:

>>If I typed "1", that means I wanted a word, a printible string, and _not_ an
>>integer.  If I wanted an integer I would type 1 instead of "1".  If I want to
>>convert a string to an integer or an integer to a float or a float to a
>>string, then _I_ will do it. I do _not_ want the language to make WAGs about
>>what I meant when I typed something.
>
>@names = ("Bob","Bob","Bob","Robert Paulson");
>@occupation = ("Uncle","Uncle","Uncle","Mayhem");
>$index = 0;
>foreach $name (@names){
>  $done = 0;
>  $x = 0;
>  while (!$done){
>    if ($members{$name.$x}){
>      $x++
>      next;
>    }
>    else{
>      $members{$name.$x} = $occupation[$index];
>    }
>  }
>}
>
>    Your argument completely ignores cases like the above, doesn't it?  Where
>you want to have a counter incremented (math function) but need to use it in a
>string constantly.  Simplistic example, yes, but a valid one.  Why force the
>programmer to do constant switching to do such a simple thing?

I'm not ignoring that case.  I'm stating that I want to do the
conversions explicitly rather than implicitly.  Why do you find
it so difficult to believe that "I want X" when I tell you "I
want X"?  I'm _not_ trying to tell you that "you want X" or
"you should use X".  I am trying to tell you that "I use X"
because "I want X".

>>There's nothing "wrong" with it.  I just don't want it to happen. The people
>>responsible for designing the language apparently didn't want it to happen.
>>Choose or invent a language that matches what you want.  Nobody (sane) claims
>>that a particular language is the best one for everybody or for every
>>application.
>
>    Exactly my point.  I don't like it but I'm not asking for it to be
>changed.  I'm just a little tired, in all of what, two days, of people putting
>down another language for doing something which /they/ consider wrong.  I
>consider it wrong in Python not because I'd like to see different, but because
>I was told Python doesn't have that ambiguity when it does, that it doesn't do
>conversion, when it does, that it doesn't do things "automagically" when it
>does.  I'm pointing out that it is just as ambiguious in its own way and that
>I personally consider it wrong but, as I stated in one message, I will learn
>to use that.
>
>>I don't think it makes sense to do so.  If I explicitly denote an object as a
>>string (e.g. "1"), then I want it to be a string and I want it to _stay_ a
>>string.
>
>    Because you're thinking in types.  I've stated that I don't like thinking
>in such primitive terms.  I don't consider 1 an integer, a string, a
>character, a float, a complex or anything else in and of itself.  I take into
>account the context of the operation.  You don't.

Fair enough.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I was in a HOT
                                  at               TUB! I was NORMAL! I was
                               visi.com            ITALIAN!! I enjoyed th'
                                                   EARTHQUAKE!