(I wanted to put this discussion into a separate post, think it will stir much controversy)

> argument signatures are lengthy in Perl

With the same technique like demonstrated in yield() one could simulate a syntac sugar function sig(), which would assign arguments from the upper caller  sig( my($a,$b) ). sig could easily handle a lot more like:

• setting default values,
• check of obligatory parameters,
• handling named parameters,
• checking types
• automatic creation of API documentation.
• allowing docstrings

But the need to declare each variable to be lexical is cumbersome, who really wants to constantly repeat my ?

sub test {
  sig my $x='default', my $y, named => my $named, OPT;
  ... code ...
}
[download]

so having a new keyword or syntax would facilitate things a lot

something like

sub test {
   mine $x='default', $y, named => $named, @OPT;
[download]

... }

or even better

sub test {
   | $x='default', $y, named => $named, @OPT |;
   ...
}
[download]

while I'm not sure if it's possible to use | w/o dangerous ambiguity.