On 6/18/05 7:54 PM, Juerd wrote:
>  
> >     .@method()  .@:method()
>  
>  In Perl, @ has a VERY strong association with arrays, so except for
>  specialised frameworks, I recommend against using it for other purposes.

The / character has very strong associations in nearly every programming
language with division.  In Perl it's also strongly associated with regexes,
albeit in pairs.  In Unix and URLs, it's associated with file paths.  At
least @ is vaguely associated with method calls in one existing programming
language (Objective-C).

> >     .>method()  .>:method()
>  
>  I think > has just enough purposes, and that it should be left alone
>  now.
>      >        gt
>      =>       pair
>      ==>      pipe
>      <>       qw
>      <<>>     qw
>      +>, ~>   shift
>      ->, <->  sub

I don't think there's any confusion between .> method() and the other uses.
In fact, I'd say there's less potential ambiguity about the >  in .>method()
than in some of other uses of the >  character.  And that's what's important:
ambiguity, not some arbitrary limit on the number of places that a character
should be used.

Also, in the context of Perl, > 's historic usage in as the method caller
thingie ->  in Perl 5 and its Perl 6 usage as the sub thingie -> ties > to
method/function calls much more strongly than /.

-John