perl should be improved and perl6

[Uri Guttman]

AD> Uri Guttman wrote:
AD> Ah... to cut down the the number of "well it's your fault" type
AD> errors. Humans make mistakes (like the constant mistake you keep
AD> making by not properly capitalizing letters).

AD> mistake? i lost my caps lock key!! it is now control which is where it
AD> should be.

AD> I'll personally donate a new caps lock key if you promise to use it! Deal?

AD> Oh and BTW all you need is a fucking shift key. You're a punk -
AD> admit it! A rebel for no good cause nor clue...

oh, i now see what i am. i owe you a great debt!! see if you can cash it
in.

j> When in a language such as java (or Java) you can say it is a
j> HashMap<String, Integer>

AD> useless information as it should be in the variable name.

AD> Just because you can't understand it does not mean it's useless.

AD> huh?? i understand more code before 6am than you do in a year!


AD> You keep believing that bro as you apparently need it to have
AD> some semblance of
AD> self esteem. Personally at 6 AM I'm sleeping...

nah, you just need to know when you were punked. (see i must be a punk!)

j> In Perl, I know a $ parameter is a scalar, a %, a hash, a @, a table,
j> and; optionals.

AD> those are prototypes and you have it wrong. besides,
AD> prototypes in perl are not a good thing and no experienced
AD> hacker uses them.

AD> Yes, script kiddies don't. Experienced professional programmers on
AD> the other hand...

AD> huh? show me one serious perl hacker that uses and likes prototypes?

AD> Hackers? You mean as opposed to serious, professional programmers?
AD> Give me a fucking break!

haha. and your cpan id is? if you denigrate the term perl hacker, you
are neither a perl coder nor a hacker. sorry but you are not allowed
into the clubhouse.


AD> you seem to be contrarian with no actual defense of your
AD> position. oh well, off with your head!

AD> You should talk. Let's see you off my head there buddy. You can't
AD> even fucking quote right! My statement stands. Your tack is to us
AD> the buddy system of hackers. Hackers unite! We will take over the
AD> world, even though we can't get laid! I bow to the obvious
AD> superiority of such a position!

me quote right? emacs does it fine. the other poster has quoting
issues.

AD> Still spilling my beer from this fucking funny shit!

all over your nice perl code. how sweet. go back to coding in java
please.

uri

 

[Gordon Etly]

There is a FAQ for Perl, that ships with perl (but not with PERL).

According to perldoc (which we encouraged to use according to the clpm
guidelines, right?), perl/PERL/Perl are one and the same:

$ perldoc perl | head -n 6
PERL(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation PERL(1)


NAME
perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language


If this is one of the first documents one reads when starting out with
Perl, then why is it of any surprise that some people use "PERL",
"perl", and "Perl" interchangeably? It spells it out in the NAME line
that it is an acronym, and acronyms can be written in all lowercase,
uppercase, or even mixed-case.

So there is a FAQ for the topic of this newsgroup rather than
a FAQ for this newsgroup.

True, and a small part of it pertaining to the usage of the term
"perl"/"Perl" and not using "PERL" would seem to be in error according
to the main Perl document/man-page.

 

[O_TEXT]

j> * some portability issue, notably with function «system».

j> I assume that what you call the external program is the shell.

no, you can call directly to any external program bypassing the
shell. learn more about qx, system and exec from the docs.

j> In my opinion, call to external programs should be done based on one of
j> the two following ideas:

j> idea 1/ A function which provides pipes for stdin, stdout, stderr and
j> (if possible) portable access to exit values.

and perl has those in IPC::Run and many other modules. hmm, IPC modules!

I installed libipc-run-perl on a debian system.

This makes perldoc IPC::Run to work.
and me discovering IPC::Run.

According to this documentation, is it seams possible to start a process
accessing stdin, stdout and stderr,
my $h = start \@cat, \$in, \$out, \$err, timeout( 10 ) ;
and see the result value at
finish $h or die "cat returned $?" ;
in a non portable way with:
full_result
and in a portable way with
result

However I am wondering how this will work under ActiverPerl, Cygwin
Perl, and StrawberryPerl.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

_
Gordon Etly ([email protected]) wrote on VCCCXXXIII September MCMXCIII in
<URL:||
|| This last quote is contradicted by the main Perl document, that gives
|| the "NAME" of the language as:
||
|| "perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language"
||
|| Which IS an acronym.

No, it's not.

The first line of a manual page is the name of the binary (not the
language, the binary), followed by a one line description.

Take for instance "man man":

man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals

Would you claim, "man" is an acronym of "an interface to the on-line
reference manuals"? Of course not.

Well of course we would not - because "an interface to the on-line
reference manuals" does not contain the letters m, a and n as the first
letters of the main or important words in the phrase. That's how
acronyms work! Whereas "Practical Extraction and Report Language"
clearly does spell out P-E-R-L and we can tell that from the words
chosen and indeed even the capital letters used. Again, that's how
acronyms work!

Just because the author of the manual page came up with an amusing line
whose starting letters make up the name of the binary doesn't make the
binary an acronym.

Who said the "binary" is an acronym? By definition the binary can't be.
The binary is a binary. Only words can be acronyms. The author clearly
meant it to be an acronym. Are you suggesting that he is wrong? Why
would we call his sincerity or facts into question? If we question those
should not we likewise then question the whole of the man page? Indeed,
if we do as you suggest then everything is suspect and unreliable,
including, I might add, your very own statements.

The technical term for it (the *description*) is Acrostic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic

I see no evidence that this is the case here.

|| Or at the very least allows one to write "perl" or
|| "PERL" to abbreviate that.

Well, if you want to abbreviate a one line description, feel free to do
so, but then you could say "AITTORM" when you want to discuss man as well.

Sheer nonsense. You obviously have little grasp of English.

Would you then also start to rant if people ask what the hell you mean? Non sequiter.
|| Again, you just cannot ignore the main
|| document.

No one is. But you're drawing unfounded conclusions.

That's your opinion. My opinion is that your conclusions here are
definitely unfounded.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

The FAQ is chock full of ASCII art which it uses to unambiguously
describe how TCP works. Infact the ASCII art description is so
unambigious and easy to read it is possable to create programs that
parse the ASCII art and generate whole TCP/IP stacks based on them.

I'm still unimpressed. You mean an old, psychedelic 60's hippie who
could not do proper graphic art, and probably could not afford to hire a
pro, banged out what he considered to be cute pictures using just
letters and numbers and I'm supposed to be like "Wow, this should be in
the Louvre!".

I have no respect for ASCII art as an art form if you haven't guessed by
now (although there are indeed some real examples of real art done with
just ASCII, ain't none of them gonna be posted here). Truth is there is
no requirement anywhere to bestow respect on anything, let alone ASCII
art, simply because you wish it were so. Respect is always earned.

I have no problems with the RFC's content and understand it's an
important document. I would have even more respect for it if it were
more professionally done, however. YMMV.

 

[Gordon Etly]

_
Gordon Etly ([email protected]) wrote on VCCCXXXIII September MCMXCIII


No, it's not.

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. (Please see below.)

The first line of a manual page is the name of the binary (not the
language, the binary), followed by a one line description.

Take for instance "man man":

man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals

Would you claim, "man" is an acronym of "an interface to the on-line
reference manuals"? Of course not.

There is a huge difference here. It is not the same as,

"perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language",

which is written defining each letter in the word "perl", which is what
an acronym is. And notice how the NAME line in most man entries are
lowercase (except for proper nouns)?

Well, if you want to abbreviate a one line description

Ok, notice how the first letter of each word in the name line for 'man
perl' is capitalized, and how each of the capitalized letters
corresponds to a letter in the word "perl"? This is a common way for
defining an acronym. There really isn't anymore to it.

 

[Gordon Etly]

Just because the author of the manual page came up with an amusing
line whose starting letters make up the name of the binary doesn't
make the binary an acronym.

You do realize the document in question //ships// //with// Perl, right?
So it's not so much of a question of a random man-page author, but the
authors of Perldoc. Remember, the same pages are accessible via perldoc
and man, perldoc being the more official interface for the Perl
documentation, of course.

It's the very fact this document ships with Perl that validates the
usage of Perl/perl/PERL as an acronym.
_

Andrew DeFaria ([email protected]) wrote on VCCCXXXIII September
MCMXCIII in <URL) The author clearly meant it to be an acronym. Are you suggesting
)) that he is wrong?


Marjorie: [ ... ] How'd you come up with that name?

Larry: I wanted a short name with positive connotations. (I would
never name a language "Scheme" or "Python", for instance.) I
actually looked at every three- and four-letter word in the
dictionary and rejected them all. I briefly toyed with the idea
of naming it after my wife, Gloria, but that promised to be
confusing on the domestic front. Eventually I came up with the
name "pearl", with the gloss Practical Extraction and Report
Language. The "a" was still in the name when I made that one
up. But I heard rumors of some obscure graphics language named
"pearl", so I shortened it to "perl". (The "a" had already
disappeared by the time I gave Perl its alternate gloss,
Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.)

[...]

Yes, most everyone has seen this article a dozen times over, it doesn't
change the fact that the front line document that ships with Perl writes
it as an acronym definition. You just can't ignore this and at the same
time act as if the documentation Perl ships with means something.

Especially after this line from the above quote:

Eventually I came up with the name "pearl", with the
gloss Practical Extraction and Report Language.

I don't think it gets any more authoritative than coming from Larry
himself ;-)

 

[A. Sinan Unur]

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. (Please see below.)

No he is not.

This is reminding me of a friend who used to pronounce doughnut
as duf-nut because he thought the '-ough' in both dough and
tough ought to sound the same.

He was able to advance many logical arguments why he was right,
but, alas, he was wrong.

The correct answer is the one adopted by native Perl
speakers whether you find that logical or not:

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#What's-the-difference-between-"perl"-and-"Perl"?

Sinan

--
A. Sinan Unur <[email protected]>
(remove .invalid and reverse each component for email address)

comp.lang.perl.misc guidelines on the WWW:
http://www.rehabitation.com/clpmisc/

 

[Gordon Etly]

No he is not.

The documentation disagrees with you both then.

This is reminding me of a friend who used to pronounce doughnut
as duf-nut because he thought the '-ough' in both dough and
tough ought to sound the same.

Ok. But what does this have to do with how the

He was able to advance many logical arguments why he was right,
but, alas, he was wrong.

The correct answer is the one adopted by native Perl
speakers whether you find that logical or not:

Ok, nice analogy, but in this case, it's you who are in your friend's
position, arguing against the written authoritative documentation.
Perl's own _docs_ spell out an acronym, so please stop ignoring this.

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#What's-the-difference-between-"perl"-and-"Perl"?

You seem to have missed this part:

"You may or may not choose to follow this usage"


And,

"But never write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym",

is completely contrary to what 'perldoc perl' says:


http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html

NAME
perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language

Which spells out a meaning for each letter, so hence, an acronym. Using
"perl" or "PERL" can denote such an acronym, so stop saying it's wrong
to use any of those forms.

That FAQ should be corrected because it is wrong. The main documentation
should always carry more weight than user-contributed content, should it
not?

Even Larry himself dubbed Perl as meaning what the NAME line says it is,
so why continue to push something that is proven wrong by both it's
top-most document and it's creator?

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3394

"Eventually I came up with the name "pearl", with the gloss
Practical Extraction and Report Language"

This is, by any definition, an acronym, spelled out in full. Given that
the 'a' was dropped, you get P-E-R-L out of it.

 

[Gordon Etly]

_
Gordon Etly ([email protected]) wrote on VCCCXXXIII September MCMXCIII
in <URL:%%
%% Even Larry himself dubbed Perl as meaning what the NAME line says
it is, %% so why continue to push something that is proven wrong by
both it's %% top-most document and it's creator?
%%
%% http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3394
%%
%% "Eventually I came up with the name "pearl", with the gloss
%% Practical Extraction and Report Language"
%%
%% This is, by any definition, an acronym, spelled out in full.
Given that %% the 'a' was dropped, you get P-E-R-L out of it.


No, it's not.

It would be an acronym if he came up with 'Practical Extraction and
Report Language' *FIRST*, then took the starting letters to make a
word.

It doesn't matter which way it came about. The cold hard fact is that
the main document spells out a meaning for each letter and that's that.
Meaning-for-each-letter. That IS what an acronym is.

Dodge doesn't become an acronym because someone came up with
'Darn Old Dirty Gas Eater'.

'Darn Old Dirty Gas Eater' is not defined in any of Dodge's official
documentation. Neither is "Fix Or Ropair Daily" in Ford's.

OTOH, "Practical Extraction and Report Language" IS defined in the
official documentation, and that is what makes a world of a difference.

 

[szr]

[...]

There is a huge difference here. It is not the same as,

"perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language",

which is written defining each letter in the word "perl", which is
what an acronym is.

Its also what a backronym is as well.

Either way, the official documentation defines a meaning for each letter
in "perl", and that is the point.

[...]

Ok, notice how the first letter of each word in the name line for
'man perl' is capitalized, and how each of the capitalized letters
corresponds to a letter in the word "perl"? This is a common way for
defining an acronym. There really isn't anymore to it.

So emacs is an acronym for Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping.

No, the man page for "emacs" defines it as "emacs - GNU project Emacs",
while for perl (either via man or perldoc) defines it as "perl -
Practical Extraction and Report Language". The latter defines a meaning
for each letter, the former does not.

 

[Tad J McClellan]

On 2008-04-06, Pinocchio <[email protected]> wrote:

[snip troll baiting and feeding]

You are inconveniencing and irritating readers of the group by
design? That's a very odd design goal to have...

But that is what trolls do.

This one has been in and out of here for years. It is sometimes
referred to as the Pinocchio or Jsut troll.

It changes addresses frequently, I have a couple dozen of them collected.

It nearly always appears as more than one poster in
contentious threads. It must manufacture support for its positions.

It has a few blatant and repeating typographical and grammatical
slips that help to confirm a sighting of yet another new persona.



Go have a look at the history of this thread for example.

Note the major contributors. Consider which might be it.

I guarantee that this poster is not the only instance of
it appearing in this thread...

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

_
Andrew DeFaria ([email protected]) wrote on VCCCXXXIII September
MCMXCIII in <URL) The author clearly meant it to be an acronym. Are you suggesting
)) that he is wrong?

Are you purposely being obtuse? I mean the author of the man page... Geeze.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

This is reminding me of a friend who used to pronounce doughnut as
duf-nut because he thought the '-ough' in both dough and tough ought
to sound the same.

Funny. How about this:

If pro and con are opposites, is Congress the opposite of progress?"

English is the most widely used language in the history of our
planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half
of the world's books and three-quarters of international mail are in
English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary -
perhaps as many as *two million* words - and one of the noblest
bodies of literature.

Nonetheless, let's face it: English is a crazy language. There is no
egg in eggplant, neither pine nor apple in pineapple and no ham in a
hamburger. English muffins weren't invented in England or french
fries in France. Sweetmeats are candy, while sweetbreads, which
aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes, we
find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public
bathrooms have no baths and a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from
Guinea.

And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don't fing, grocers
don't groce, humdingers don't hum and hammers don't ham? If the
plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?
One goose, two geese - so one moose, two meese? One index, two
indices - one Kleenex, two Kleenices?

Doesn't it seem loopy that you can make amends but not just one
amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not just one
anal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of all
but one, what do you call it?

If the teacher taught, why isn't it true that the preacher praught?
If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses and a
camel's-hair coat from the hair of camels, from what is a mohair
coat made? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian
eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you also bote your tongue?

Sometimes I wonder if all English speakers should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people
drive on a parkway and park in a driveway? Recite at a play and play
at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that
run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man
and a wise guy are opposites? How can OVERLOOK and OVERSEE be
opposites, while *quite a lot* and *quite a few* are alike? How can
the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

Did you ever notice that we talk about certain things only when they
are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful
gown, met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever
run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?

And where are the people who ARE spring chickens or who actually
*would* hurt a fly? I meet individuals who CAN cut the mustard and
whom I *would* touch with a ten-foot pole, but I cannot talk about
them in English.

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your
house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out and in which your alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't really a race
at all). That is why, when stars are out they are visible, but when
the lights are out they are invisible. Any why, when I wind up my
watch I start it, but when I wind up this essay I end it.

He was able to advance many logical arguments why he was right, but,
alas, he was wrong.

The correct answer is the one adopted by native Perl speakers whether
you find that logical or not:

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#What's-the-difference-between-"perl"-and-"Perl"?

Sinan

Reasonable men can differ. Apparently you're not a reasonable man...

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

No, it's not.

It would be an acronym if he came up with 'Practical Extraction and
Report Language' *FIRST*, then took the starting letters to make a word.

But he didn't. He came up with 'Pe(a)rl', and given that name,
constructed 'Practical Extraction and Report Language'. Which makes
the latter a derivate of the first, making 'Practical Extraction and
Report Language' an Acrostic of 'Perl' (instead of Perl being an acronym).

Dodge doesn't become an acronym because someone came up with 'Darn Old
Dirty Gas Eater'.

It certainly does to that someone - and indeed to others as well. One
need not ask for permission to think.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

So emacs is an acronym for Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping.

It is to some people - though 8 megs is decidedly tiny given modern
systems....

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

This one has been in and out of here for years. It is sometimes
referred to as the Pinocchio or Jsut troll. Huh?
It changes addresses frequently, I have a couple dozen of them collected.

Now sir you are being intellectually dishonest. I always, 100% of the
time, post with my real email address which is my real name. I have
nothing to hide. And I've been doing so since at least '96. You sir are
a bold faced liar. I challenge you to produce any evidence that I posted
here before with another identity. You will not because I have not.
Usually at that time an apology is in order but I know you're way too
intellectually bankrupt to offer one.

It nearly always appears as more than one poster in contentious
threads. It must manufacture support for its positions.

It has a few blatant and repeating typographical and grammatical slips
that help to confirm a sighting of yet another new persona.

Huh? Of course your supposed algorithm for matching up typographical and
grammatical slips in order to track people must be brilliant and must be
in use at the NSA fer sure. The only problem is... You're dead wrong!

Go have a look at the history of this thread for example.

Note the major contributors. Consider which might be it.

I guarantee that this poster is not the only instance of it appearing
in this thread...

I guarantee you that any time you see my posts, they are mine. I'm real
and genuine and I don't hide - ever. Nor to I post with alternate
identities. You sir are just plain wrong and you will never produce any
evidence to the contrary because there is none.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

<meaningless flamebait snipped>

Yes, you are a troll. Good-bye. <plonk>

Thank heaven!

 

[Gordon Etly]

David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus) wrote: [...]

So emacs is an acronym for Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping.

No, the man page for "emacs" defines it as "emacs - GNU project
Emacs", while for perl (either via man or perldoc) defines it as
"perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language".

But neather of those are definitions, there abstracts.

That may be, and perhaps definition was too strong a wording to describe
it, but it's still written as providing some sort of meaning for each
letter in Perl, in Perl's own documentation.

Giving a meaning for each letter results in an acronym, and using all
caps or all lowercase to describe an acronym that has no explicit mixed
case should be fair game, should it not?

There for the FAQ that says not to use "PERL" should be corrected imho,
as it is perfectly reasonable to use it as "perl" or "PERL" when
referring to it as an acronym.

 

[Ted Zlatanov]

AD> Man you are naive aren't you. I don't post nor read here in the
AD> hopes of making money - I make money elsewhere... Lots of it...

I just wanted to mention that I love how you've managed to pull so many
classic troll tricks, including the money gambit. Very nice.

Ted