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Re: That which is better left unsed: Removing language digressions

From:
Gurusamy Sarathy
Date:
May 13, 2003 23:23
Subject:
Re: That which is better left unsed: Removing language digressions
Message ID:
200305140623.h4E6NsXj005691@smtp3.ActiveState.com
On Wed, 14 May 2003 00:55:06 CDT, Dave Rolsky wrote:
>References to perltrap should be enough for people coming from a strong
>sed/awk/C/Befunge background, but for others, especially people learning
>Perl as a first language, or second after PHP/Python/Javascript/VB/etc.,
>they are just distracting.

Not convinced.  IMHO, the primary job of the Perl reference
documentation is to describe the language fully and adequately.
This includes discussion of the motivation behind language
features, their history and their lineage.  Second-guessing
whether a particular class of user may or may not find such
information distracting is not on the agenda.

If you want to help the people who don't know any of the languages
that perl borrowed heavily from, why not write separate primers
or tutorials that do just that?  Why "dumb down" the reference
documentation?

And I'd say perltrap is focussed on pitfalls, not rationale for
language features.  The latter belong right where the language
features are being introduced.


Sarathy
gsar@ActiveState.com



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