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Postings from August 2021
Porters,
Since at least 2009 <http://markmail.org/message/gaux5xx5jlop3vmk>, we have been talking, once in a while, about deprecating the use of \N{APOSTROPHE} as a package separator, Ada style.
The following two expressions are equivalent:
$x::y::z
$x'y'z
This mostly goes unnoticed, but the confusion sometimes seeps in at:
print "This is $user's problem to deal with."
…which attempts to interpolate $user::s
This bites experts and new users alike, and while the apostrophe *might* be aesthetically pleasing as a package separator, that battle has basically been lost.
I think the next course of action is to see what on CPAN would really break if the old package separator was removed. I predict "very nearly nothing." Then, to add a deprecation warning for when it is used, with a drop dead date. That is, assuming that we don't realize there's some reason we really ought not to do this.
This is a low-value win, but I think it's a win. Shall we carry on to RFC this?
--
rjbs
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