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Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 17:56:17 -0800
Subject: Re: Everything is an object.
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On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 11:36:17PM +0000, Simon Cozens wrote:
: schw...@pobox.com (Michael G Schwern) writes:
: > If you want a tactile grasp of the "Everything is an object" concept, try
: > some Ruby.
: 
: If you want a tactile grasp of Perl 6, try some Ruby. But I'll be saying
: a lot more on that later...
:  
: > A flip through the Ruby builtin methods is nice for building up some envy. :)
: > http://www.rubycentral.com/book/builtins.html
: 
: I vaguely object to calling them builtins, as I've objected to similar
: concepts in Perl 6. They aren't *built in* to the language - you could
: add another method and the parser wouldn't give a damn - they are
: methods of the standard libraries that ship with Ruby. This
: distinction is important, despite what Damian would have you believe.

Foul!  I suspect this is a fight over definitions, not beliefs.  Damian
is usually pretty much on the mark with his beliefs.

: In the same way, the specification of C-as-a-language, its syntax and
: operators and the stuff that makes it look, act and feel like C, is
: agnostic of the C standard library. (Even though "ANSI C" specifies
: both, they are seperable.) This seperability is something I'd like
: to see thought about a lot more in Perl 6.
: 
: > There's lots of reasons to use an operator or built-in instead of a method,
: > but remember to make the consideration first.  Don't go grammar happy.
: 
: Yes, yes, yes. This is what I've been trying to say for a while.

Don't get discouraged--I've been saying it for a good long time now, and
people still don't hear it, regardless of which side they're on...

About the only things that have to be truly built-in to Perl 6 are
lambda and the regex engine.  Everything else is negotiable.  (I'm
counting method dispatch under "lambda", of course... :-)

Larry