Re: what would you like to see in perl5.12?

[duff]

Personally, I'd like to see some of the features of Perl 6.

• Real subroutine signatures
• pipe-line operators (i.e. ==> and <==)
• The reduce operator
• Implicit variable declaration via twigil ($^foo)
• Better support for OOP
• Perl6 Regex

Et cetera.

It doesn't have to be perfect or exactly like Perl 6, as long as it provides a good cognitive bridge.

[moritz]

The Perl 6 features I'd like to see most in 5.12 is optional static typing, and real subroutine/method prototypes, a la

sub repeat(Str $string, Int times)

That makes code very much self-documentatory, and perhaps the partial statitic typing allows for more optimizations.

Mind you, I have now idea if that's implementable with the current compiler/interpreter design - it's just a wish ;-)

[EvanCarroll]

Bump the Moose suggestion and you can get close to that functionality now...

use Moose;

has 'string' => ( isa => 'Str', is => 'rw' );
has 'times'  => ( isa => 'Int', is => 'rw' );

sub foo {
  my $self = shift;
  my ( $string, $times ) = ( $self->string, $self->times );
}

[moritz]

Would that work with sub signatures (not methods), and does it allow for the same kind of optimization that is possible if the compiler knows about the types?

[Jenda]

Why would anyone want to repeat the failed experiment of prefix types?  sub foo( Str $ref->[]{}, Int @arr[], Str $fun(Int bogus, Real otherbogus)) anyone?

[moritz]

What makes you think that prefix types are a "failed experiment"?

If you are talking about prototypes, that's hardly the same.

Many staticly typed languages use it successfully, and if it stays optional I don't see a point against it.

If you don't like the notation, you are of course free to omit the types - that's why I wrote optional static typing.

BTW. I guess it would be Int @arr instead of Int @arr[].

(Update: fixed thinko spotted by holli)