Re: (Ovid) Re: Thoughts on Perl6 - Love it? Hate it?

[impossiblerobot]

I fear Perl 6, as I fear all things new. :-)

The variable prefix notation will be based on the variable type and not on the access method:

    @foo[ $bar ]; # was $foo[ $bar ];
    %foo{ $bar }; # was $foo{ $bar };

Programmers routinely get those wrong when they're first starting with Perl. Now they'll get them right.

I won't get it right (at least for a while). I bought into the whole idea that the prefix showed what variable type is being accessed (though it does get a little fuzzy when dealing with references). It may help new Perl programmers, though.

More compiler hints and optional strong typing! This is going to overcome one of the biggest objections to Perl!

And add one of my strongest objections to virtually every other language but Perl. I realize that it will be optional, but so (in theory, at least) is 'use strict'.

Actually, I'm looking forward to Perl 6. I've always hated the arrow syntax for Perl's object-oriented features, and I'm willing to give up the '.' concatenation operator to get rid of it. :-)

Impossible Robot