SPUG: Self-generating code: yea or nay?

[Marc M. Adkins]

I learned Perl after browsing the camel book in Borders and noticing that it
had an eval() function.  It's the first language I've used since Lisp that
has this feature.

I had been playing with Java but reflection didn't do what I wanted...and
all I really wanted was to _easily_ evaluate simple math expressions.  After
learning Perl I found that 95% of the code I had written in Java (on that
particular project) was unecessary if I used Perl.

Granted, mis-use of this feature can lead to performance penalties as well
as being hazardous to one's health (I finally got enough rope to really hang
myself).

mma

> Speaking of unstructured coding, I recently updated the online
> grep/map/sort
> tutorial and added the example below.  This got me thinking: are there any
> cases where self-generating code is "better" (in some sense) than the
> alternatives?  I feel the answer is no - can anyone provide a
> counter-example?


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