sorting pathnames by basename

Erik Price erikprice at mac.com
Wed Aug 21 01:32:18 EDT 2002


On Tuesday, August 20, 2002, at 08:28  PM, bscott at ntisys.com wrote:

>   All three mean the same thing, but the first is by far the most 
> common in
> American English.  Perl is a lot like English.

I couldn't agree more.  Here's why:

English is supposedly the hardest language in the world to learn.  Why?  
Because there are so many ways to say the same thing!  Yes, that is the 
reason AFAIK.  I'm not just talking about synonyms, I'm talking about 
the way you can structure the grammar of the language to mean the same 
thing, but in so many ways.

I studied Japanese for years when I was in college, almost 
double-majoring with it but not quite.  And I was struck by how 
systematic that language is.  Sure, a lot of people will naturally 
wonder if it's very hard, since there is a complex writing system based 
on Chinese that consists of tens of thousands of characters (the 
Kanji).  But as far as learning the core, the very grammar of the 
language itself, it is amazingly straightforward!  Although there is 
"more than one way to do it", this generally has more to do with slang 
and formality than with the way that the language is structured.

Perl is definitely English-like in this regard.





Erik





--
Erik Price

email: erikprice at mac.com
jabber: erikprice at jabber.org




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