Darren Duncan skribis 2005-06-18 11:40 (-0700):
>  item invocation syntax was exactly the same but with the 
>  consideration that all private items have a ':' as the first 
>  character in their otherwise alphanumeric names (the ':' looks like 
>  part of an operator but it isn't).

Except for attributes, which play a different game: the colon comes
*instead* of the dot as the twigil, while the accessor method gets : in
front of its name. If I recall correctly, the syntax is very misleading
in that it is NOT part of the name.

I don't like the inconsistency.

>        PUBLIC      PRIVATE
>      ----------  ----------
>      ./method()  ./:method()

./:method is what I originally suggested along with my suggestion of
./method itself. I strongly dislike that .:method would work on $?SELF
and I also strongly dislike the contrived and false
two-\W-characters-mean-invocant-otherwise-it's-$_ rule. (It'd be true
(but would still feel artificial) if .+method would also use the
invocant. Which I pray is not the case.) 

I do not want there to be any indication of there being two defaults and
that there is a way to select the other default. ./ is an operator by
itself and not the combination of . and /, and it cannot be used infix.
There is only ever one default variable|object in syntax, and that is
$_.

I'd like the colon to be part of the name, like underscore is used in
Perl 5: outside access is discouraged but entirely possible. I don't
think ANY syntax should be special cased for a method, just because it's
private. That doesn't mean there can't be a warning (warnings are not
syntax), and in fact a warning is all there should IMO be.

This means these public-private equivalency pairs exist:

    $foo.bar   $foo.:bar
    .bar       .:bar
    ./bar      ./:bar
    $.bar      $.:bar      # I wouldn't mind if $:bar were an *abbreviation*    
    .+bar      .+bar
    ./+bar     ./+:bar

(People could introduce other prefixes (although the number of available
characters is very limited) for other accessability indicators, like
perhaps .@method to allow web access.

>      .@method()  .@:method()

In Perl, @ has a VERY strong association with arrays, so except for
specialised frameworks, I recommend against using it for other purposes.

>      .>method()  .>:method()

I think >  has just enough purposes, and that it should be left alone
now.

    >         gt
    =>        pair
    ==>       pipe
    <>        qw
    <<> >     qw
    +> , ~>   shift
    -> , <->  sub
    
    
Juerd
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