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Postings from September 2000
On Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 11:17:40AM -0400, Karl Glazebrook wrote:
[Cryptocontext is:]
> > f(3*@a)
> >
> > would typically be a list context - and suddently instead of 3*(1+$#a)
> > you get C<map 3*$_, @a>.
>
> This is true, what I would propose is we declare 3*(1+$#a) outmoded and
> always have it mean C<map 3*$_, @a> in all contexts.
You are trading a frequently used shortcut @a == 1 + $#a for a
rarely-used-but-beautiful/intuitive semantic. I'm not sure it is a win.
Moveover,
$x = 3 * @_;
suddently being equivalent to
$x = @_;
does not look very promising...
> > Why? Currently you can make them look like references to array. See
> > Math::Pari for an implementation. Overloading '@{}' gives yet another
> > way to do this.
>
> True but the user has to remember 'owe I am now using a special PDL
> array which means I have to always use a reference to it rather than
> treat it like a perl array'. Not good.
No, you do not use "a special PDL array", you use "a vector".
A subtle change in wording - and no conflict.
> This is true, but inelegant. If perl @x arrays are not considered useful
> why not get rid of them and always use references?
Actually, this is what Perl is using internally (they are
softreferences==globs, but who cares?).
Ilya
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