Re: Hmmm.... future of cons?

[Johan Holmberg]

On 17 May 2002 address@hidden wrote:
>
> Yeah, I've been reading the cons source recently... I thought
> I knew Perl, but it's not enough for cons. Just an example
> (off the top of my head, I don't have the source here):
>     $obj->bind(find pkgname, $par);
> How many parameters does bind & find take? In other places,
> the call to find is spelled
>     find pkgname ($par1, $par2);
> - I can't even find that in perldoc...
>

I haven't seen anyone commenting on this, so I just want to  say:

Cons makes frequent use of "indirect object syntax" (described on
page 313-- in the current version of the Camel book).

Every time we write

    Program $e 'foo', 'foo.c';

we use that syntax. The source code of Cons also uses that syntax
(sometimes). I think this has been discussed before on the list, and
people agreed that it  would be a good idea to change to using
"normal" -> syntax everywhere in the source. There is also an entry
in the TODO file saying:

   Change the documentation (and code) to always use the arrow syntax
   instead of the sometimes-ambiguous indirect object syntax (i.e., use
     "$env->Program(...)" instead of "Program $env ...")
            Alex Jacques, 22 December 2000
            Tony Kolarik, 23 December 2000

I think this would be a good idea, and make it easier for
non-perl-experts to realize what is going on. Most people
recognize "obj->method()" syntax from other OO-languages.

/johan holmberg