Explaining the Schwartzian Transform

#!/usr/bin/env perl

# what is a schwartzian transform?

# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartzian_transform

use feature qw{ say } ; 

# notice how all of these are not in any order?

my @tedx_feeds = qw{
    tedx
    tedxboston
    tedxindianapolis
    tedxiu
    tedxpurdueu
    tedxlafayette
    tedxohiostateu
    tedxpsu
    tedxuiowa
    } ;

# we'll read this backwards. 
my @sorted = 
    map { $_->[0] } 
    # ... and then we just use the words, jettisoning
    # the lengths and creating the final array.

    sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] }
    # ... which we sort numerically by the length
    
    map { [ $_ , length $_ ] } 
    # ... becomes an array of arrays, being all
    # the words and their lengths, starting 
    # with [ 'tedx' , 4 ] ...

    @tedx_feeds ; # the array in unsorted order ...

# Start here and go up <-----------------<<<<<

say join "\n" , @sorted ;

# output looks like:
# tedx
# tedxiu
# tedxpsu
# tedxuiowa
# tedxboston
# tedxpurdueu
# tedxlafayette
# tedxohiostateu
# tedxindianapolis

It took me quite a long time to get the Transform, and the use of map and grep. But they aren't hard. Once you get them, you'll use them everywhere. Maybe too much....