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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 18:41:29 +0100
To: perl6-intern...@perl.org
Subject: Re: Determining PMC memory addresses
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From: j...@osp.nl (Jos Visser)
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On Fri, Nov 28, 2003 at 10:27:45AM -0700 it came to pass that Cory Spencer wrote:
> 
> > > On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Leopold Toetsch wrote:
> > >
> > > > Op vtable       Meaning
> > > > -  is_same      PMCs are ident
> > > > -  is_equal     PMCs are equivalent, holding the same value
> > > > Y  cmp          cmp PMCs
> > > > -  cmp_num      cmp PMCs numerically
> > > > -  cmp_string   cmp PMCs as strings
> > > >
> > > > Proposals for opcode names welcome.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> 
> Well, a page could be stolen from the Lisp book by defining eq/eql/equal
> opcodes (though in ths case, differing from the Lisp counterparts in the
> meaning of the tests) where
> 
>   - eq is true if both arguments have the same value (that is, both are
>     numerically equal or both are equivalent strings)
>   - eql is true if both arguments are the same, identical object
>   - equal does a comparison to test if the two objects are structurally
>     similar (ie. in the case of a PerlArray, an element-by-element
>     comparrison would be performed to determine the similarity of the
>     structure.)
> 
> Cory

I think this is definitely something we should do if we want to confuse
people as much as possible :-)

Much can be said about this topic, but let's keep in mind that:

- The length of the opcode name is not important for execution speed or
  memory space used (this contrary to the early LISP
  machines/interpreters).

- English is only a small language (with respect to the amount of native
  speakers, which are mainly restricted to a number of large islands 
  and some of the residents of a large and mostly uninhabited landmass
  somewhere on the western hemisphere) :-)
  Non-native speakers can not be trusted to immediately grasp the
  semantic differences between things as:
  	- equal/identical/same
	- compare/test

I would therefore vote that we keep these opcodes as verbose as
possible. So no eq/eql/equal, but rather
same_address/same_content/compare/compare_as_num/compare_as_string. 

And remember, I am nobody... :-)

++Jos.es

-- 
Viel mehr als gestern liebe ich dich heute.
Doch weniger noch als ich dich morgen lieben wird.
  "Wie vor Jahr und Tag", Reinhard Mey