In Perl 6, special meta method built-ins are always all caps, specifically because it's not a very reasonable name to choose in most cases, similarly to how python surrounds a name with double underscores. They are special and different, and should appear as such.
> But "object1.WHAT == object2.WHAT" is something that wouldn't occur to me in a million years
Well, that's good,because you aren't really supposed to be doing that. Rather than getting upset at how Perl 6 looks weird when you map operations directly to how you would do them in another language, it might be better to see if that case actually comes up at all. Maybe the language has other features that support different, possibly better, idioms (or at least better for that language)?
Just because Perl 6 and Python are both dynamic languages and have some features doesn't mean you should assume it functions or should be programmed in the same way. I doubt you would make that mistake for something that looked obviously different, like racket, so why jump to those conclusions here just because they look similar in certain aspects.
I was just pointing out that what you considered unreasonable syntax was actually pretty common syntax. That the function/method names could be better, I agree. But that's an entirely different matter.
Are you referring to python's choices, ruby's, Perl 6's, or all of them? If you think .WHAT could be better, is it the all caps you dislike or is it use of the word 'what' or both? What would you suggest instead?
raiph: we're talking about perl 6's two choices for the things you've brought up, that it's in all-caps and that it consists of the contextually nonsense word 'what'.
The word "what" is one of the most common English words - so the opposite of a better, explicit choice, like type, class, classtype, etc - and doesn't even mean "what-is" if you read it out loud. 3.WHAT doesn't sound like "What 3 is" - it sounds like "3 - I didn't hear you" or if you're being very generous it means "What is 3?" (asking for its value).
You asked what I would suggest? If you want to be really cute and grammatical while sounding like a natural language, here is a suggestion. Instead of WHAT my suggestion is the word STYPE, and read it as though the preceding word had an apostrophe at the end: 3.STYPE, thiswindow.STYPE and so forth. (3's type, thiswindow's type, etc). anyway you asked for a suggesiton, there you have it. I woudn't use it myself though.
I don't buy that it's contextually nonsense. I suspect you had a bad reaction to it and have gotten caught up in that initial reaction. I could be wrong about that but your stated perspective is noticeably extreme and unique about a relatively tiny point.
> if you're being very generous it means "What is 3?" (asking for its value).
I don't think that's being especially generous. But yes, please be generous. :)
I don't think it's asking for its value.
What is Belgium? (Country) What is HN? (Time Sink) What is `4 -3i` ? (Complex Number). What is $age? (Int)
If you want a value you just write something like:
say 3; # 3
say $age; # 55
Well I intended my comment for epidemian, but OK. :)
> If you want to be really cute
Perl 6 explicitly incorporates fun but also explicitly avoids "you think that's cute today" mistakes.
I like the choice of names for the pseudo method mop macros: what, which, where, who, why, how, etc. But that's partly because: I find them easy to remember as a group; I found them easy to understand once I'd encountered them once; and I've not seen anyone react negatively to any of them the way you have.
----
Anyhoo, I hope you won't let your dislike for the rarely used .WHAT et al to unduly color your view of Perl 6. I don't expect the tutorial that's the topic of this HN to impress anyone but that's because it deliberately sticks to absolute basics. Instead, I urge you to wait until next year, and then take another look; I think you'll see there's a lot to like.
# perl6 -e 'class Person { has $!initials }; my $p = Person.new( :initials<KAB> ); say $p.WHAT' (Person)
As for why all capitals, you can just as easily ask Python why double underscores. In the end, it's all language convention (explained here[1]). Denigrating something just because it's different is not a position I think has merit. If down the line we discover that these were bad choices, at least then there will hopefully be some evidence to point to.
> The word "what" is one of the most common English words - so the opposite of a better, explicit choice, like type, class, classtype, etc - and doesn't even mean "what-is" if you read it out loud. 3.WHAT doesn't sound like "What 3 is" - it sounds like "3 - I didn't hear you" or if you're being very generous it means "What is 3?" (asking for its value).
If you think WHAT in a programming language is likely to be interpreted as "What? I didn't hear you." then I submit that you are using libraries with very poorly named cutesy methods that the author should have really known better than to use if it ends up in in production. Given the context of a programming language, when would you ever need to call a built in metamethod (because it's all caps...) that meant "I didn't hear you" ?
Even when "what" is used in the context of "I didn't hear you" it actually is asking for information (to be repeated), and the "I didn't hear you" is the implicit part (otherwise why would you ask for the same thing be said again?).
I personally prefer Ruby's stance of making built-in methods look like normal user-defined ones (no special double underscore or all caps convention or anything like that). But this is a small quibble; i wouldn't ditch an entire language for such a minor thing (i've used Perl and regularly use Python and have found both to be quite pleasant languages to use :)