worley@compass.com (Dale Worley) (02/22/91)
X-Name: Root Boy Jim Like C and postscript, perl makes it possible to represent unprintables by using \ escapes. It is bad form to do otherwise. Except, of course, when the unprintable character is a variable name, in which case you have to use ^. Now that Perl has stabilized, it's time to redesign it from the ground up! Ugh... Dale Dale Worley Compass, Inc. worley@compass.com
rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) (02/23/91)
<1991Feb22.153214.25775@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> worley@compass.com writes: > > X-Name: Root Boy Jim No, that's *still* my name! > Like C and postscript, perl makes it possible to represent > unprintables by using \ escapes. It is bad form to do otherwise. > >Except, of course, when the unprintable character is a variable name, >in which case you have to use ^. Now that Perl has stabilized, it's >time to redesign it from the ground up! Ugh... While I am partial to using control characters for nifty things, I kind of hate to see them creep in as variable names. The only excuse I can see is that since they were previously illegal (well, conceptually at least), It was a cheap way for Larry to get some extra system variables. Don't use them up too quick, Larry! As far as redesigning it from the ground up, perl's biggest problem is that it's not LISP. This may actually please some people. I would like to see a marriage of the two, but I'm not holding my breath. -- [rbj@uunet 1] stty sane unknown mode: sane