Re: Languages From Hell -- your favorite one could walk again!

iwm@doc.ic.ac.uk writes:
: perl:
:
: Version 4 anyway: the way in which assigning a parameter in a subroutine
: to a local variable changes the way the parameter is passed from reference
: to value. I cannot think of a simple way to compile a language where the
: passing method cannot be determined until runtime


I think you've misunderstood. The parameters are always passed by
reference, and arrive in the form of an array--a concept that already
exists elsewhere in Perl. The customary assignment of these parameters
to a list of named variables merely does the copy that would have had
to be done anyway to get pass-by-value semantics, but without adding
any special syntax. This is usually called orthogonality. Believe
it or not, Perl is occasionally orthogonal. :-)


Larry Wall
lwall@netlabs.com
--

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