Re: Secret operators: the documentation

On Mar 16, 2012, at 4:44 AM, Philippe Bruhat (BooK) wrote:

> A few years back, I started to write a manual page about Perl secret =
operators,
> with the goal of getting it into the official Perl documentation at =
some point.



A few comments=85

1.  It would be nice to do a bit of documentation on *why* or *how* some =
of these work.  Perhaps a Deparse would be sufficient (as in Eskimo =
greeting), but English is also a good tool.

For starters, I didn't figure out how "Ornate double-bladed sword =
worked".  I'm sure I could have created the trail alone, but it would be =
nice to follow someone else's blaze.

2. Given how dangerous this one could be (to a psyche) if researched =
deeply (years of therapy=85)

 =3D( )=3D        Goatse                      scalar / list context
=20
I'd suggest another name -- Saturn.  Yes, snicker if you will.  Saturn =
*is* the son of the Greek deity Uranus, but that's only a 2nd order, =
inside joke.  The operator looks like Saturn, even when spaces are =
inserted (as will be likely with syntax formatting editors or =
perltidy(1))!   =20

=3D( )=3D        Saturn                       scalar / list context
=3D ( ) =3D      Saturn                       scalar / list context

Keep the old name if you wish, but add one that's more psychologically =
healthy, too!!!  (P.S.  Thanks for the warning.  That's just plain =
*responsible* behavior to the community!!!  One image could ruin =
someone's whole view of Perl.)

Michael

--=20
Michael R. Wolf
    All mammals learn by playing!
        [email protected]