4 ms·

This post reminded me that Perl doesn’t even have a concept of a method signature, even so much as showing the number of arguments. You have to look at the nex

This post reminded me that Perl doesn’t even have a concept of a method signature, even so much as showing the number of arguments. You have to look at the next few lines to hopefully see all the `... = shift;` lines to see what you’re actually supposed to send. I mean, a lack of type annotations is normal for a scripting language, but Perl always seemed to go a bit far by not even having a standard way of showing parameter names. I remember doing `my ($arg1, $arg2) = @_;` or something similar, but even that felt weird, and not everyone adopted that convention.

isostatic 7y ago
I usually do sub mymethod($$) my ($arg1, $arg2) = @_; } Apart from on the smallest programs. So it does have a method signature (obv it's an untyped language) There are shortcuts (just like you could write "doSometing() unless $var;"). Perl does give you options. Python has different options for passing methods - passing variables, passing a dict, P.S. while looking at python method declartions, you can send variables, a key-value, multiple keyvalue, and then there's this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16785702 https://stackoverflow.com/a/16785702 Which comes out with f = lambda **dic: ' '.join(dic.get(key, 'None') for key in 'abc') Which is no more or less readable than the most confusing perl I've ever encountered. "Cool Shortcuts" are a problem in any language. There are values in anonymous functions on occasion (especially in sorts), there should be a very compelling reason to do so.
- bmn__ 7y ago
  > sub mymethod($$) That does not work. Prototypes are ignored for method calls. You are expected to not abuse prototypes for signatures as they serve a different purpose. > it's an untyped language That's wrong even with the most lenient/charitable interpretation. Using an unexpected type of data is a fatal error. perl -e'$x = {}; $x->[0]; print "survived"' Not an ARRAY reference at -e line 1. Type constraints have existed for a very long time, for example see http://p3rl.org/Kavorka::Manual::Signatures#Type-constraints http://p3rl.org/Kavorka::Manual::Signatures#Type-constraints
mfontani 7y ago
... but it does, since perl 5.20, which was released May 27, 2014. More than five years ago. Here's a short example: use 5.020_000; use warnings; use experimental qw<signatures>; # this works: say add(2, 3); # this dies: Too many arguments for subroutine 'main::add' at ... say add(2, 3, 4); sub add ($x, $y) { $x + $y; }

isostatic 7y ago

I usually do sub mymethod($$) my ($arg1, $arg2) = @_; } Apart from on the smallest programs. So it does have a method signature (obv it's an untyped language) There are shortcuts (just like you could write "doSometing() unless $var;"). Perl does give you options. Python has different options for passing methods - passing variables, passing a dict, P.S. while looking at python method declartions, you can send variables, a key-value, multiple keyvalue, and then there's this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16785702 https://stackoverflow.com/a/16785702 Which comes out with f = lambda **dic: ' '.join(dic.get(key, 'None') for key in 'abc') Which is no more or less readable than the most confusing perl I've ever encountered. "Cool Shortcuts" are a problem in any language. There are values in anonymous functions on occasion (especially in sorts), there should be a very compelling reason to do so.

bmn__ 7y ago
> sub mymethod($$) That does not work. Prototypes are ignored for method calls. You are expected to not abuse prototypes for signatures as they serve a different purpose. > it's an untyped language That's wrong even with the most lenient/charitable interpretation. Using an unexpected type of data is a fatal error. perl -e'$x = {}; $x->[0]; print "survived"' Not an ARRAY reference at -e line 1. Type constraints have existed for a very long time, for example see http://p3rl.org/Kavorka::Manual::Signatures#Type-constraints http://p3rl.org/Kavorka::Manual::Signatures#Type-constraints

mfontani 7y ago

... but it does, since perl 5.20, which was released May 27, 2014. More than five years ago. Here's a short example: use 5.020_000; use warnings; use experimental qw<signatures>; # this works: say add(2, 3); # this dies: Too many arguments for subroutine 'main::add' at ... say add(2, 3, 4); sub add ($x, $y) { $x + $y; }