note
hdb
<p>
Coming from a C++ background (though not having used it for a
long time), it always made a lot of sense to me, that the method
call operator is <c>-></c>. After all, objects in Perl are used
via references, which is closer to a pointer to an object than
to an object itself.
</p>
<p>
Loosing the dot as string concatenation is IMHO a rather severe
event. The tilde is a bad replacement choice, in particular in
the form of the assignment operator. <c>$str ~= "ccc"</c> will
be concatenation, <c>$str =~ "ccc"</c> will be matching. Quite
confusing and a likely cause for error.
</p>
<p>
The visual appearance of <c>-></c> versus the dot for calling
methods is a bad guide in my opinion, not even taking into account
that code will look more like VB than classic Perl. What will be
gained in changing <c>-></c> to dot, will be lost from the change
of the dot to the tilde. There is good reason that this character
only appears rarely in code and usually in conjuntion with the equal
sign to form the matching operator.
</p>
<p>
The esthetics of well written Perl code contrasted with the visual
appearance of a tilde separated file. What a terrible outlook!
</p>
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