Humor: The Evolution of a Programmer

bscott at ntisys.com bscott at ntisys.com
Thu Nov 14 22:29:59 EST 2002


On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, at 1:12pm, pll at lanminds.com wrote:
>> Perl's debugger has a similar feature, except you do need a single-letter
>> command ('x') before the expression to evaluate.  A typically Perlish
>> streamlining: Abbreviated, inconsistent, and cryptic.  ;-)
> 
> Why is 'x' abbreviated, inconsistent, or cryptic?

  It is abbreviated because it is a single letter instead of a word.  It is
cryptic because it is "marked by often perplexing brevity", which is one of
the definitions given by Merriam-Webster for "cryptic".  I guess it is not
so much "inconsistent" as "totally lacking in anything to be consistent
with", which isn't quite the same thing -- my usage of "inconsistent" was a
bit inconsistent, sorry.  ;-)

> What would you have instead?

  I like it the way it is.  See that little smiley next to my comment?  
That means I was being tongue-in-cheek.  ;-)

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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