Re: [FWP] Fun with terminology

[Jacob Kenner <jacob@gateway.causative.net>]

On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Ronald J Kimball wrote:
 > [As long as we're talking about language usage, "begging the question"
 > refers to the fallacy of circular logic, not to a question being raised by
 > a particular situation.  There, that's my pet-peeve.  :) ]

...

 > Whereas those prefix operators $ @ et al. all specify a type to the argument,
 > the infix operator -> does not.  You can use -> to dereference array refs,
 > hash refs, and subroutine refs.
 > 
 > $array_ref->[$i];
 > $hash_ref->{$str};
 > $sub_ref->($arg);
 > 
 > For ->, it's the right operand, not the operator, that determines the type.
 > 
 > 
 > So, the phrase "Perl's dereferencing operators are typed" is incorrect
 > because only some of the dereferencing operators are typed.

This is a quite interesting discussion of linguistical documentation
errors.  However, it appears to be begging the question as to whether it
is "Fun With Perl" or would be best discussed on the perl-documentation
list.

Of course, that statement makes this thread refer to a fallacy of circular
logic, so does it really belong on any lists? ;-) If this is honestly a
documentation error, though, it _should_ be forwarded to
perl-documentation@perl.org, so that Tom can tell you why it's not
_really_ an error, just a misinterpretation on the part of the reader.

~jacob
-- 
Jacob Kenner, jacob@causative.net
OS Integration, Administration, and Security Support


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