Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!rbj
From: rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: While learning PERL... a suggestion
Keywords: perl file learn suggest
Message-ID: <119776@uunet.UU.NET>
Date: 24 Jan 91 23:44:29 GMT
References: <1991Jan21.174520.12207@iwarp.intel.com> <1991Jan21.201845.28080@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Jan24.100539.20366@iwarp.intel.com>
Organization: UUNET Communications Services, Falls Church, VA
Lines: 47

In article <1991Jan24.100539.20366@iwarp.intel.com> merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
>The name spaces are separate in the ordinary sense, but the * operator
>is not an ordinary operator. :-)
>
>I hope Larry will forgive me for the following.  It's probably close
>enough for jazz, but Larry will cringe at the description.

I hope not. 

>Think of *FOO as the internal representation of the symbol "FOO" in
>the program, in *whatever* form it is used: &FOO, $FOO, %FOO, @FOO,
>and FOO as a filehandle.  When you say *BAR = *FOO, you are really
>saying that BAR can be used anywhere that FOO can be used with
>identical results.  It doesn't matter if there's an intermediate step:
>you could say $a = *FOO then *BAR = $a.

I'm jumping in here because of a phone conversation I had with merlyn
before he left. In LISP, a symbol is an object. It has four "cells":
a value, a function, a property list, and a print name. Think of
PERL symbol as having many cells also: scalar, array, assoc, label,
a subroutine (Larry, you used a dirty word!), & file handle.

A similar concept exists in C++, the reference operator.

So *FOO really *IS* the pointer to the symbol itself. It's a pity
that Larry decided to swap the meaning of & and *. Because then
he wouldn't have had to include these in "Here is what C has that
perl doesn't". It is probably too late to right this wrong.

>By the way, I just got home from Uniforum...My hand is tired. :-)

Maybe you should have taken your woman with you :-)

> It was great.  300 books sold and signed within 2 hours.  

Oh yeah.

>print do {{ redo unless "Just another Perl hacker,"; }} # huh? :-)
>-- 
>/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
>| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
>| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
>\=Cute Quote: "Intel: putting the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."====/
-- 

	Root Boy Jim Cottrell <rbj@uunet.uu.net>
	Close the gap of the dark year in between