From: Andrew Hunt <andy@...>
Date: 2002-09-07T05:04:42+09:00
Subject: RE: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby

Drew Mills points out:

	>OO is still not taught as the norm.
	>So Larry was correct.  That's not to say that the world needs to accede to
	>this pedagogy, but it is a positive thing to recognize reality, even if you
	>decide not to change.

I think that's a fair summary of Perl, actually.  It's a very
reasonable thing to conform to the norms -- all possible norms, in
Perl's case.  All progress, of course, depends on the *unreasonable*
person :-)

But this is all beside the point -- Larry's off the mark
in suggesting that an inconsistency is preferable for any reason. I
contend that that attitude is just plain wrong.  It's better to
be consistent -- even if that consistency is towards something
new and unfamiliar -- than to introduce exceptional cases that
the user (at any level) has to carry around.

/\ndy