Re^7: If you believe in Lists in Scalar Context, Clap your Hands

[ig]

I am increasingly inclined to agree with you, that Perl is not a language in its own right but merely a description of what some perl program does.

Even so, abstractions can facilitate use and understanding. Perl and perl should be consistent, but to the extent that Perl is an abstraction rather than the full source code, it comes from people trying to understand and explain perl rather than from perl itself.

In addition to facilitating understanding and use, elaboration of simple and unsurprising abstractions can help to identify ways in which perl and Perl might be improved. What it could and possibly should be is not what it is, but that doesn't mean discussing these possibilities is a waste of time. Without such discussion, there would be little basis for deciding what do do in the next release.

This particular Meditation may never inform or motivate an improvement in perl, but some do. Or are the developers of perl so remote from PerlMonks that nothing here makes any difference to what they do?