Re: RFC 98 (v1) context-based method overloading

[email protected] (Nathan Wiger) Mon, 14 Aug 2000 20:05:14 -0700
Newsgroups perl.perl6.language.subs
Message-ID <[email protected]>
> It will run faster, because it doesn't have to evaluate
> the want().  (97,98) doesn't invalidate the current way of doing
> things, it just gives a new way.

Seems like it would have to evaluate the want() either way. Either in
the sub prototype:

   @ sub { }        # want @
   $ sub { }        # want $

or in the sub body:

   sub { want 'ARRAY' ? @array : $scalar }

I don't see a speed advantage. At least not enough to justify a whole
new sub syntax (with new core hooks, basically an embedded 'want', etc,
etc).

New features are cool, but not at the expense of bloat. I don't want a 5
MB Perl executable just for something that's already (more?) easily done
another way. :-)

-Nate