AD> More than one why to do it?
AD> BTW, I've often wondered why the last sentence has been a rallying cry
AD> just for perl when it so clearly applies to Lisp as well. I think it's
AD> a strength.
Lisp's defpackage accepts so-called "string designator", which can be
string, character, or a symbol.
this is quite consistent and widely used behaviour (many lisp functions do
accept string designators), so this adds convenience but doesn't introduce
problems.
as i understand in Perl they often introduce alternative ways to do things
in ad-hoc way -- just for one function, or just a special syntax case for
something.
certainly introducing stuff in such inconsistent way often can introduce
problem (you do not understand other's code because they're using some
"special" way to do things), and that's why people criticise Perl.
there are some inconsistences in Lisp too -- stuff that was introduced for
"historical" purposes and was not cleaned up. i'm afraid nobody thinks it's
a strength (except people who've ported some pre-CL code to CL decades ago),
but there's no much harm from this cruft anyway..