[Tutor] Are you allowed to shoot camels? [kinda OT]

[Sean Perry]

Liam Clarke wrote:
> 4) WHAT IS WITH THE STUPID SYMBOLS EVERYWHERE LARRY??!!
> 
> I'm not referring to the $ & @, I can see how they could be useful,
> although with a list -
> 
> @dude = (1, 2, 3), to obtain the 2nd value I would expect $d = @dude[1], 
> not $d  = $dude[1], that's counterintuitive also. 
> 

(I am an ex-perler gone clean. Been straight for 5 years now with only 
the occasional work forced binges.)

Perl was designed by a linguist. He wanted it to act like human language 
-- which is not very consistent.

That said, perhaps I can shed some light on the symbols.

Ever learned a Romance language? latin, spanish, french, etc? The 
dollars and at signs can be thought of in relation to plural endings.

$foo --> dog
@dog --> a group of dogs
$dog[0] --> a dog in the group

So when you mean "the whole group" use the plural spelling and when you 
want to refer to a member use the singular spelling. Likewise with other 
parts of the language.

Personally, the thing that keeps me away from Perl is nested datastructures.

Python:

my_list = [....]
a_dict = {.....}
b_dict = {.....}
my_list.append(a_dict)
my_list.append(b_dict)

if my_list[0].has_key("foo"): print "Yes"

easy. Try that in Perl.

my @my_list;         # remember those semicolons
my %a_dict, %b_dict;
push @my_list, %a_dict;
push @my_list, %b_dict;
if (exists $my_list->[0], "foo") print "Yes\n";
# yes, references required, in Perl ick.