Re: RFC 165: Allow variables in a tr///

>| >A lot of
>| >non-gurus 
>| 
>| So what?

>There are far more non-gurus using perl than there are gurus.  If all we
>cared about was the gurus, we wouldn't need Perl.

Wrong.  And irrelevant.

>| Pick your own quotes is a perl thing.  Let them learn this concept.  
>| If they can't, you made a bad hiring choice.

>It may be a perl thing, but it isn't a Perl thing, at least not until
>"recently".  

You're completely full of ... wrongness.  Again.

    % perl1 -e '$_ = "fred"; s#d#e#; print;'
    free

>make it difficult on them in the first place?  Remember the easy things
>easy, etc.

Catering to people who don't know Perl in such a way that it hamstrings
those who *do* is brain-dead.  Ease-of-long-term is more important than 
ease-of-learning.  You're only a beginner once--or, if you would,
ignorance is merely an ephemeral state.  Well, for most people;
as for those who are permanently ignorant, you can't fix them,
so don't even try.

We don't write Greek using Latin letters just because more people
know Latin letters!  It's a minor point.  It's part of the language.
Pick-your-own-quotes is part of what makes Perl useful and easy to
write and easy to read.  Just as Greek would be *harder* to read
transliterated into Latin script, so too would Perl be harder to
read if you had to go shoving a backslash up the frontside of every
slash.  Teepees are *not* harder to read.  It's too much to factor
out, and makes no sense.  Just because the smallminded blow a fuse
doesn't mean we should screw Perl--those fuses were meant to be
fried.

>| Transforming everything that's syntactically distinctive in Perl a
>| simple C-looking function will homogenize it into the same boring
>| sameness (and thence to illegibility) as the proverbial fingernail
>| clippings stranded in a bowl of oatmeal.

>This is also an opinion.  Homogeneity isn't necessarily boring.  In fact,
>it can often be quite liberating and allow one far more flexibility and
>creativity than previously.

It may be just an opinion, but it is the PERL OPINION (read: part
of what makes perl, perl) and if you don't like it, go play with a
different language, or write your own.  Different things are supposed
to look different.  Different things are *not* supposed to look the
same.  You haven't read enough of Larry's writings about this.  

--tom