4 ms·

I think there's a difference between "baby talk" and using Perl as Perl. You can write Perl that looks like Python, or C, or whatever, but you're missing out o

I think there's a difference between "baby talk" and using Perl as Perl. You can write Perl that looks like Python, or C, or whatever, but you're missing out on what makes Perl, Perl. "baby talk" Perl is another name for being able to much with Perl, knowing very little of it. Also known as, "Getting your job done". It's up to the individual to learn more about the language, which can be done gradually, much like a natural language. "Clean, maintainable code" in Perl is actually known as, "Modern Perl" [0] [0] http://modernperlbooks.com/ http://modernperlbooks.com/

logicallee 11y ago
you're wrong though: it's not just up to the individual to learn more about the language, it's also up to to every single person who maintains that code afterward! If you learn something, you force your maintainer to learn it. This is particularly true because many syntax elements are literally impossible to Google. If you didn't happen to learn some idiom (syntax), you just can't deduce or discover what it does, unless a comment precedes it exactly listing the effect. This is just the nature of Perl.
- justinator 11y ago
  > This is just the nature of Perl. I would encourage you to check out some of the more recent tools and books on Perl that help greatly in making code readable and maintainable, like the Modern Perl book, the Perl Best Practices book or things like Moose - or even if I dare say, Perl 6. The Perl Community has come a long way since when I started in 1999, that's for sure. So has the entire Industry, to be quite honest.
- kbenson 11y ago
  Just because you seem to have a C-centric view of the world doesn't mean restricting yourself to C-like syntax and code structure is the "correct" way to do it. At that point, there's no reason to be using Perl over Python. You wouldn't complain that people using Haskell were writing unmaintainable code just because it didn't follow the idioms from C-like procedural languages, would you? Why would you lay the same claims at a Perl? Just because it superficially has some similar syntax and you can restrict yourself to that subset? Learn the language you are writing code in, and use idiomatic code for that language.

logicallee 11y ago

you're wrong though: it's not just up to the individual to learn more about the language, it's also up to to every single person who maintains that code afterward! If you learn something, you force your maintainer to learn it. This is particularly true because many syntax elements are literally impossible to Google. If you didn't happen to learn some idiom (syntax), you just can't deduce or discover what it does, unless a comment precedes it exactly listing the effect. This is just the nature of Perl.

justinator 11y ago
> This is just the nature of Perl. I would encourage you to check out some of the more recent tools and books on Perl that help greatly in making code readable and maintainable, like the Modern Perl book, the Perl Best Practices book or things like Moose - or even if I dare say, Perl 6. The Perl Community has come a long way since when I started in 1999, that's for sure. So has the entire Industry, to be quite honest.
kbenson 11y ago
Just because you seem to have a C-centric view of the world doesn't mean restricting yourself to C-like syntax and code structure is the "correct" way to do it. At that point, there's no reason to be using Perl over Python. You wouldn't complain that people using Haskell were writing unmaintainable code just because it didn't follow the idioms from C-like procedural languages, would you? Why would you lay the same claims at a Perl? Just because it superficially has some similar syntax and you can restrict yourself to that subset? Learn the language you are writing code in, and use idiomatic code for that language.