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Re: Proposed pragma: readonly - summary

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From:
Peter Scott
Date:
May 22, 2000 23:36
Subject:
Re: Proposed pragma: readonly - summary
Message ID:
4.2.2.20000522232637.00ab2460@mail.psdt.com
At 03:34 PM 5/22/00 -0600, Tom Christiansen wrote:
> >But the cases that I'm really interested in are where you want to export
> >constants and be sure that they can't be messed up:
>
>The trend over the last few decades has been to design computer
>languages that enforce a state of paranoia.  You're expected to
>program every module as if it were in a state of siege.  Certainly
>there are some feudal cultures where this is appropriate, but not
>all cultures are like this.
>
>Specifically, Perl's culture is not.

True, but not the entire picture; it also appears to be permissible within 
the Perl culture to provide the means for enforcing paranoia as long as it 
isn't mandatory.  I adduce perltoot on the subject of Closures as Objects:

>Nothing under the sun will allow anyone outside the executing method
>to be able to get at this hidden data.  Well, nearly nothing.  You could
>single step through the program using the debugger and find out the
>pieces while you're in the method, but everyone else is out of luck.
>
>There, if that doesn't excite the Scheme folks, then I just don't know
>what will.  Translation of this technique into C++, Java, or any other
>braindead-static language is left as a futile exercise for aficionados of
>those camps.

--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies


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