From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 5 14:07:53 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3193D106564A for ; Mon, 5 Apr 2010 14:07:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from merlyn@stonehenge.com) Received: from red.stonehenge.com (red.stonehenge.com [208.79.95.2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1665D8FC16 for ; Mon, 5 Apr 2010 14:07:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: by red.stonehenge.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id A71D764CF; Mon, 5 Apr 2010 07:07:52 -0700 (PDT) From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) To: Matthew Seaman References: <20100403210610.GA4135@thought.org> <4BB8108A.9080104@FreeBSD.org> <1270371713.5861.98.camel@tao.thought.org> <86aatjnsts.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> <861vevnsow.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> <20100404163353.GA15198@guilt.hydra> <20100404201442.b456044e.freebsd@edvax.de> <4BB9A5ED.3040309@infracaninophile.co.uk> x-mayan-date: Long count = 12.19.17.4.9; tzolkin = 1 Muluc; haab = 2 Pop Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:07:52 -0700 In-Reply-To: <4BB9A5ED.3040309@infracaninophile.co.uk> (Matthew Seaman's message of "Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:57:17 +0100") Message-ID: <867homm1qf.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Alejandro Imass , Polytropon , Chad Perrin , FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: perl qstn... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:07:53 -0000 >>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Seaman writes: Matthew> As far as I know, perl and its descendant ruby are the only Matthew> programming languages that let you put the condition test after Matthew> the action, despite this being exceeding familiar in human Matthew> languages. Except, we old-timers remember that Larry Wall directly lifted this from RSTS-E BASIC-PLUS, which he had used at Pacific University as a student. Having hacked BASIC-PLUS myself around the same time, I recognized it instantly. BASIC-PLUS went further though, allowing them to be nested. So you'd end up with monstrosities like: PRINT a IF a % 3 = 2 FOR a = b TO b+7 FOR b = 0 TO 90 STEP 10; Thankfully, Larry limited Perl's statement modifiers to precisely one level. :) Just another old geezer, -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion