The suggestion was that a future release of Perl5 should be named Perl7. Perl6 is a "spunky little sister"[1] to Perl5, not the next evolution of Perl.
I saw it immediately but I can see how that can happen. On the web, an underline doesn't quite scream "input" as much as a white rectangle with a border does.
I would love it if instead of quitting my program with an error, it just went ahead and called the method it thinks I'm referring to. This would remove a lot of unneeded friction from web development.
One of the early PL/1 compilers IBM wrote in the 60's did something akin to this. It was a 'premium' feature, available in one of the more expensive compilers. Where it detected any error or wrong looking code, it would correct it. There's a story floating around somewhere on the net of one guy trying to use it... (Which I can't find at the moment.)
The first time he tried to compile with it, he used a program of roughly "Hello from PL/1". When he ran it, he got a division by zero error, because his string had been turned into an arithmetic expression. With the 1 turned into an I, which was then an unitialized variable, which then defaulted to 0.
There is actually a python module that does something like that. It goes to the extreme to keep the program running no matter the error you make, arithmetic error are replaced with random results, missing functions skipped, exceptions silently swallowed etc etc. It is obviously a joke but they could benefit greatly from this feature ;)
For those who are interested, I'm pretty sure this is what you're referring to https://github.com/ajalt/fuckitpy. It's worth looking into for the documentation alone.
FuckIt.py uses state-of-the-art technology to make sure your Python
code runs whether it has any right to or not. Some code has an error? Fuck it.
FuckIt.py uses a combination of dynamic compilation, Abstract Syntax Tree
rewriting, live call stack modification, and love to get rid of all those
pesky errors that make programming so hard.
Still getting errors? Chain fuckit calls. This module is like violence:
if it doesn't work, you just need more of it.
Sounds like the Python equivalent of Visual BASIC's "On Error Resume Next" atrocity.
Except you can find "On Error Resume Next" in "production" code. If I ever consider taking contracts doing Visual Basic, the contract will specify that any occurrence of "On Error Resume Next" automatically doubles my daily rate.
You are correct, but please don't refer to the bastardized version of the Jargon file. Wikipedia has a much better and more accurate article, with actual quotes and citations instead of unsourced politically motivated mythology attributed to "some victims":
>Critics of DWIM claimed that it was "tuned to the particular typing mistakes to which Teitelman was prone, and no others" and called it "Do What Teitelman Means" or "Do What Interlisp Means." - Guy L. Steele Jr., Richard P. Gabriel, "The Evolution of Lisp"
The person who bastardized and maintains the Jargon file is a racist, sexist nut job who built his career on attacking the Free Software movement, and who doesn't deserves anyone's respect or attention: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond
The show has mostly made sense technically. The only thing they got wrong is the code is clearly proprietary but Richard tells the assistant that it's up on github in the first episode.
While calling BBT "nerd black face" is over-the-top and inaccurate (see subthread above), what does privilege have to do with offensive stereotypes? Are you claiming that, for groups above a certain level of privilege, there is no such thing as an offensive caricature?
Not exactly but sort of. Think of the effect the caricatures have. Caricatures that are punching up (making fun of rich people, tech geeks, etc) affect people in a way different way than caricatures that are punching down (making fun of the poor, and racial and sexual minorities, etc).
It's similar to the difference between being called the n-word vs cracker.
I find it hard to believe you've given your opinions on it much thought or research. Oscar Wilde nor any actual socialist advocates for crony capitalism/corporatism.
I studied economics. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot make something out of nothing, that money has to come from somewhere.
Just like in physics, the laws of thermodynamics, energy and matter cannot be created nor destroyed, but converted from one form to another. Socialism is the same way, you cannot create social programs without funding them in some way. How does a government get funds? By taxation.
This article violates economics, it violates logic, it violates physics, it violates so many things on so many levels.
I am not one to just read something and automatically believe it is true. You are going to have to prove to me that it is true. Unless I see some sort of evidence, I remain a skeptic.
Down-vote me if you want, it only validates that I am correct, and you are all covering up something.
I down voted your original comment and I'm a libertarian (the kind that believes in private property). Your regurgitated comment with complete disregard for the context is exactly what makes us libertarian look like a bunch of dogmatics and hurts our cause.
e: Actually wasn't there a blog post posted to HN suggesting Perl skip to 7 too?