The Perl Renaissance

Post by nnq » Sun, Feb 17, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #109

spacemanaki wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument was just that it has nothing to do with significant whitespace, which is what you were complaining about. Python could be changed to have non-significant whitespace but retain its crippled lambda.

>>My argument was just You made specific claims (regarding map recommendations in Python and that white space has nothing to do with one instruction lambdas). I asked for references. I assume you have none? Note that with significant white space a usable syntax for multi-instruction lambdas seems... non-trivial. It seems to me as an unusually stupid fan boy position. But a few well argued references, which you lack,…

Post by pyre » Sun, Feb 17, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #105

pyre wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used both Perl and Python. When using Perl I use anonymous functions all the time. When writing Python, I don't. There are instances where in Perl I would use an anonymous function, but in Python I define a local function an pass the reference. Each language has it's own style. If you're trying to fight the language's style, then you will obviously run into friction. I'm sure there are plenty of people coming fr…

>>Ruby code to Haskell Uh... different paradigms. The scripting languages, which we are talking about here, are generally very similar. >> I welcome examples of where anonymous functions are unable to be replaced by local functions passed by reference. Where did I write "unable" -- did I disprove some Turing machine theorem and forget about it? :-) In this specific case it was a declarative data structure with some d…

  | >>Ruby code to Haskell
  |
  | Uh... different paradigms. The scripting
  | languages, which we are talking about here,
  | are generally very similar.

  | >> I welcome examples of where anonymous
  | >> functions are unable to be replaced by
  | >> local functions passed by reference.
  |
  | Where did I write "unable" -- did I disprove
  | some Turing machine theorem and forget about it?
  | :-)

  | In this specific case it was a declarative
  | data structure with some data next to code. It
  | was well suited to have a dozen or two short
  | functions next to the data structures.
  |
  | You could rethink the whole thing and do
  | something different in Python to keep it
  | readable. But among the normal languages (in
  | the same paradigm), Python is the odd man out,
  | just because of the lack of multi line lambdas.

  a = 0
  if a
    puts "Evaluates to True"
  end

Post by berntb » Tue, Feb 19, 2013, 5:17 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #121

berntb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>My argument was just You made specific claims (regarding map recommendations in Python and that white space has nothing to do with one instruction lambdas). I asked for references. I assume you have none? Note that with significant white space a usable syntax for multi-instruction lambdas seems... non-trivial. It seems to me as an unusually stupid fan boy position. But a few well argued references, which you lack,…

I should rest all this rip, but I can't help it: reference to multi-line lambdas in languages with Python-like syntax: http://cobra-language.com/trac/cobra/wiki/AnonMethod , http://boo.codehaus.org/Closures (yep, you're right, having multiple closures on a single line with offsite-rule syntax is "non-trivial" and no one solved this yet, but even one per line would be enough to make map and fold bearable, and ftr, I w…

Post by kbenson » Wed, Feb 20, 2013, 1:21 AM UTC

berntb wrote: post #124

pyre wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| >>Ruby code to Haskell | | Uh... different paradigms. The scripting | languages, which we are talking about here, | are generally very similar. Different languages are different, no matter how many similarities that they have. You are going to run into issues porting between languages. Expecting anything else is setting yourself up for disappointment. C++ and ObjC are both 'C-based', so there should be zero issues…

>>The inclusion of multi-line lambdas in a language is what makes it 'normal'? All the scripting languages are very, very similar (see data structures, etc). In short, you don't argue against my point. My point was that Python stops multi-line lambdas for some weird purity argument re white spaces (I haven't found any other motivation). This hurts quite a few use cases (for a 2nd -- copy paste and automatic indentati…

  my $local_var = do { lock($lock_var) }

  {
    lock($sync_var);
    $sync_var = "start!";
    cond_broadcast($sync_var);
  }

Post by draegtun » Thu, Feb 21, 2013, 9:56 AM UTC

anonymous wrote: post #32

eCa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That question can be turned around: Why should someone use Python (or Ruby) instead of Perl? For someone who hasn't used any of those, I'd say give each of them a few hours and see which style suits you best. Of course, try to find modern examples to learn from. When it comes to Perl that means: * Mojolicious [1] (or Dancer [2]) as the web framework * DBIx::Class [3] as the ORM (maybe with some sugar [4]) * Moose [5]…

Python and Ruby both have garbage collectors and can deal with reference cycles. Perl only has reference counting, leading to programs that leak memory due to reference cycles and needing to hunt down where in the code you're creating them. It's the only high-level language I know of that only has reference counting for memory management.