Perl Debate Time ;-)

[Arthur Corliss]

:-)  Ahh, there *is* life on this list!  ;-)

On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Fred Steinberg wrote:

>  Tony> I think those who want to get rid of "local" are wrong. They are two
>  Tony> completely different operators, used for two different purposes.
> 
> Right; dynamic vs lexcial scoping. Completely valid concepts, i.e. this is
> not a debate about Perl syntax, it's a general concept.

Actually, proponents of its demise do take exception to its use syntactically,
mostly because of what it does to readability, especially in larger programs.
I have to think that the differences are generally understood, the question is
does the need for such subtle differences demand its presence, or could they
be handle better another way?

> I almost never use 'local', myself. But that's no reason to get rid of it.

I agree, this is definitely more of a stylistic debate than anything else, and
I do use local frequently, myself, though just for private subs.

I am curious, however to see how often people use the localised scope function
in lieu of passing values or refs.

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Bolverk's Lair -- http://www.odinicfoundation.org/arthur/
	  "Live Free or Die, the Only Way to Live" -- NH State Motto