From: mike@... (Mike Stok)
Date: 2003-06-20T01:46:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Multiple Initialize methods?

In article <20030619144253.10746.qmail@web12404.mail.yahoo.com>,
Michael Campbell  <michael_s_campbell@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> > > They are not type-less there are dynamically typed.
>> > > Doing 
>> > >  a = 1 + "1"
>> > > doesn't work in Ruby, but does in Perl, for example.
>
>
>Not to nit-pick here, but in perl aren't "1" and 1 the same type
>("scalar") but different contexts?
>
>Or is that just a semantic nit?

The context is provided from the program text and affects what gets
pulled out of a scalar; a scalar in Perl has slots for integer value,
number value and string value (being fast & lose with terms here) which
get generated on demand.  Usually they are "intuitively" related e.g.

  $i = 1;               # sets IV slot to 1
  print $i . "\n";      # sets PV (string) to contain "1"
  print $i + 0.1, "\n"  # sets NV to 1

But sometimes the string isn't the representation of the number (e.g. $!

[mike@ratdog Mail]$ perl -e '$! = 1; print  $! + 0, "\n$!\n"'
1
Operation not permitted

(Hope I haven't lied too much here...)

Mike

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