http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=505832


in reply to Re^3: Consider this: What makes a good node title?
in thread Consider this: What makes a good node title?

What do you think of something like "__DATE__ ?" for a node title? It seems like it would be pretty clear to any C programmer that the Seeker was looking for the perl equivalent to the __DATE__ macro. And since Perl has __FILE__ and __LINE__, I think most monks could figure out the intent of the question even if they didn't know a lick of C. Thoughts?

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Re: __DATE__ ?
by betterworld (Curate) on Nov 04, 2005 at 18:47 UTC
    In C, __DATE__ is a way to retrieve the compile date. But in Perl, compiling and running are done by the same process, so we could just do something like
    my $compile_time; BEGIN { $compile_time = time; }
Re: __DATE__ ?
by jeffa (Bishop) on Nov 04, 2005 at 19:05 UTC

    You read the question first and then figure out what you think would be a better title. Perhaps "What is Perl's equivalent to C's __DATE__ macro" or "What is __DATA__ used for?" (__DATE__ is very close to __DATA__ after all)

    Then, you don't change the title. You consider the node and give your suggestion for the new title and let the other janitors give their thoughts on the title.

    jeffa

    L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
    -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
    B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
    H---H---H---H---H---H---
    (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)
    
Re^5: Consider this: What makes a good node title? (__DATE__ ?)
by sauoq (Abbot) on Nov 04, 2005 at 19:45 UTC

    Well, in the context of this thread, I'd call it misleading...

    But, that aside, if it were the title of a top level SoPW and related to either the __DATE__ preprocessor constant—which is available in perl if you use -P, by the way—or even if someone just typo'd __DATA__, I'd say it should be left as is.

    † Not that you should do be doing that...

    -sauoq
    "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";