http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=96794


in reply to Dots and cargo-cult programming

I've got a slightly different take on the . vs -> syntax grumblings.

I have Win32 System Administration background. I was told by someone I deeply respected, that I should learn Perl if I wanted to be a "real sys admin" (curiously he didn't mention the OS...too easy a target, I guess). There are quite a few tools out there that use VB and VBScript for NT Admins. I laughed at people who used VB because, well, it was BASIC (yeah, just a tad naive).

However, quite a few books and people use VB for examples on how to script NT administration tasks. One of these books is ADSI ASP Programmer's Reference(1998,wrox, Steven Hahn). I wanted to know more about ADSI and this book had lots of info, even with it being VB-centric. I figured I could port it to Win32::OLE. I was wrong. I didn't want to learn VB so I could learn how to do it in Perl. So this book doesn't even have the spine cracked, because I found other Perl modules aside from OLE to keep me busy.

I'm very embarrassed to say that I had no idea that . meant -> until it was brought up in the Perl6 discussions. I guess I can go back, break open that book, and translate the . to ->.
If Perl6 uses the . syntax, it might make it easier for people like me to read and learn from other code. Even if it is VB.