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Postings from February 2012
>... Python sense of these tings. Yes, certainly. Thanks. All typos a spellchecker can find are long taken care of; it's things that are real words but which don't scan that are the problem. The version I sent out was a pre-proofed copy of the pod, not the latest. However, all that's really different is that it's now been spellchecked. So there might be grammos. But really, it's the semantics, scope, and tone that I'm concerned about. And length. For perltrap, I would recommend making a Java, Python, and Ruby section that is about the same size as the existing other-language-trap sections, not these copious lists I have here. Some of my points are *not* things that beginners will get tripped up on, but only experts. I don't know that those need to be there at all. A bet 30-40% would plenty suffice. The problem I have with all this is that these read more like things in language X that will trip up a Perl programmer instead of the other way around. Of course, that's because that's how they were written, because we are Perl people, not J/P/R people. That worked find with C/sed/awk/sh, because we actually *were* those things before we were Perl programmers, so knew them well. Now with these others, not so much. For example, I'm always megachafed by Java's lack of proper function pointers (and don't get me started on "reflection"). That's because real programming languages have those. But a Java programmer coming to Perl isn't going to be looking for something whose very existence they don't even know about. Function pointers just aren't in the Java programmer's arsenal of attack, their toolbox. In contrast, a Java programmer told me that he had the most frustrating time in the world coming to Perl because he couldn't find an Integer.parseInt() "static method" (read: function call) in Perl. See why those are entirely different classes of trap? Right now we have mostly things from the first sort -- mental lacunae that trip up Perl programmers coming to J/P/R, not the sort that occurs in J/P/R programmers coming to Perl. Might anyone please have some suggestions for *those* types of things? I fear we need people who actually *think* in J/P/R for this sort of question. I can think in C without trouble, but I definitely don't have Python or Ruby internalized; I don't even know Ruby at all, and Python I still speak with a strong native accent. Java is further along in that regard. But whereas I previously held for Java a cordial dislike borne of having only a cursory notion of how it worked, now my dislike for the language can no longer be called at all "cordial", for familiarity has bred contempt. And that's something that should really be suppressed, because it doesn't help anyone, and helping people is the whole point here. --tomThread Previous | Thread Next