Re: Unusual coding arrangements in Perl

[Old_Gray_Bear]

The fact that a language construct can be "difficult to put into English" is a function of the power of the abstraction represented by the Language. A line of 'code' can easily represent several paragraphs of English text. This is not a difficulty, it is a consequence of the power of the tool you are using. Consider Mathematics (Group Theory), Physics (Maxwell's Equations), etc for other for other fields where a few lines of 'code' translate into many, many lines of English text.

If you think Perl is terse, consider APL or Forth. I have seen an entire Gaussian matrix reduction expressed as a dozen *characters* in APL. (The corresponding FORTRAN program ran to over 200 lines.)

[itub]

A line of 'code' can easily represent several paragraphs of English text. This is not a difficulty, it is a consequence of the power of the tool you are using.

Slightly OT, but this is exactly what I thought when I was reading an electoral law regarding the distribution of seats in congress. It takes several paragraphs of confusing prose to explain something that would take a few simple equations or lines of pseudo-code!

[BrowserUk]

For my favorite example of this, see the large paragraph on my homenode headed "A Halton Borough Council public notice", and then imagine how much simpler to follow a line on this would be.

One thing that would really enhance discussion of some things here at PM is the provision of a whiteboard. I understand the storage implications make that impractical and the risk of people posting obscenities more so, but sometimes a picture really does save a thousand words, and off-site links have a habit of going away.