Re: svn commit: r17771 - branches/bdb-fixes/tools/dev

[Branko Čibej <br...@xbc.nu>]

John Peacock wrote:
> Branko Čibej wrote:
>   
>> David James wrote:
>>     
>>> Why add prototypes?
>>>       
>> Because "use strict" requires them.
>>     
>
> No, it doesn't; where did you get the idea that it did.  Prototypes in Perl are,
> as David described, not what you might expect them to be.  The "$" prototype
> doesn't require that the argument be a scalar, it evaluates the argument in a
> scalar context, which is a very different thing.
>
>   
>>> For example, the "$" prototype
>>> converts an array of letters ("a",b","c","d") into a count of the
>>> number of elements (e.g. "4"). Is this really what you want to do?
>>>   
>>>       
>> Yes. Why not?
>>
>>     
>
> Because then you only know how many arguments were passed in, rather than the
> *value* of the arguments.  Get a copy of Damian Conway's "Perl Best Practices"
> and see p 194 for example, where he demonstrates exactly why prototypes are best
> unused.
>   
FWIW, I've changed stress.pl on trunk so that it "uses strict" but 
doesn't use prototypes. The version on the bdb-fixes branch is now 
defunct, and I won't be merging it to trunk when the time comes.

-- Brane


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