>The fact is, that is *not* perl. That is why we FINALLY got rid of the >"package'variable" convention for the more favourable package::variable >form. Nope. It's still there, but like your doddering old auntie, who has a strange accent and still talks about the Ægypians. There are a few places it doesn't work, but those are the new places. Old code continues to function. >It was _wrong_. It was a decision made on cuteness, You're mistaken. It was a decision made on precedent; see Ada. >The fact that every technical manual I have ever read chooses not to >call them bytes, and chooses the term "octet" had BETTER mean something >to a technical community. It _must_ be accepted. You're shouting. I suspect that means you're wrong. Whether this is the case, I can see that you're far from conversant with the technical manual nearest and dearest: % cd /usr/share/man # NB: completely pre-catted % tcgrep -rCi byte cat? | awk -F: '{s += $2} END{print s}' 3392 % tcgrep -rCi octet cat? | awk -F: '{s += $2} END{print s}' 55 I shouldn't care to bet against odds of 62 to 1. % cd /usr/include % tcgrep -rCi byte . | awk -F: '{s += $2} END{print s}' 2861 % tcgrep -rCi octet . | awk -F: '{s += $2} END{print s}' 56 Less, but still remarkable: I remark that better than 50 to 1 ratio is an important data point. Let's try once more. % cd /usr/local/src/perl5.5.650 % tcgrep -rCi byte . | awk -F: '{s += $2} END{print s}' 3128 % tcgrep -rCi octet . | awk -F: '{s += $2} END{print s}' 4 Oh good. Now we have 782 to 1. Can you say "overwhelmingly more prevalent"? Very good, Mark! I knew you could do it. --tom