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I like writing bash scripts a lot and perl is a natural step-up with powerful libraries to use. As others have said, the major obstacle for me has been the lack

I like writing bash scripts a lot and perl is a natural step-up with powerful libraries to use. As others have said, the major obstacle for me has been the lack of great literature.

yellowapple 9y ago
There's lots of literature out there for Perl 5 (like the so-called "Camel Book"). Perl 6 literature is pretty scarce, though.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  There is 2 out now and many in development. So really not that bad.
  - cygx 9y ago
    2? It's 5 now! https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484228982 https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484228982 http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920065883.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920065883.do https://deeptext.media/perl6-at-a-glance/ https://deeptext.media/perl6-at-a-glance/ https://deeptext.media/migrating-to-perl6 https://deeptext.media/migrating-to-perl6 https://www.amazon.com/Learning-program-Perl-Getting-programming-ebook/dp/B07221XCVL https://www.amazon.com/Learning-program-Perl-Getting-program...
    - throwaway7645 9y ago
      No idea the other ones came out so fast :)
dmytrish 9y ago
For small tasks I enjoy aesthetics of small dedicated Unix tools (grep, sed, awk, cut, sort) working together much more. Perl tries to be everything at once, still mysteriously lacking interactive REPL out of the box. Yes, Python is more heavyweight for scripting, but it pays in the long term with better maintenance and tooling for big scripts.
- daotoad 9y ago
  So do you like small tools or having everything built in (like a REPL)? It sounds like you are justifying an emotional attachment rather than making consistent arguments. Now, there is nothing wrong with having an emotional attachment to a language or other tool, as long as you know it for what it is. Python is a great language and has some really nice features, it's C extension system is miles better than Perl 5's horrible mess called XS. But to me, using it feels like wearing my shoes on the wrong feet, I really prefer Perl 5. From my experience and from listening to colleagues, Python has one edge on Perl 5. Perl 5 and Python have very similar tooling abilities. Long term maintenance of large systems is pretty much the same. Python has the edge in ability to find and hire qualified people because the community has done a better job articulating Python's strengths and recruiting new people.
- b2gills 9y ago
  The first version of Perl was basically combining many Unix tools together into one language, along with features from C, so that they are easier to use together. In fact there are two flip-flop operators that exist in Perl 5, one which works like the one in awk `..` , and the other like the one in sed `...`. Perl 6 renames them to `ff` and `fff`. I remember hearing/reading that the release of Perl was delayed until a2p and s2p were written, specifically for people who used awk and sed to be able to get going quickly in Perl.

I like writing bash scripts a lot and perl is a natural step-up with powerful libraries to use. As others have said, the major obstacle for me has been the lack of great literature.

yellowapple 9y ago

There's lots of literature out there for Perl 5 (like the so-called "Camel Book"). Perl 6 literature is pretty scarce, though.

throwaway7645 9y ago
There is 2 out now and many in development. So really not that bad.
- cygx 9y ago
  2? It's 5 now! https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484228982 https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484228982 http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920065883.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920065883.do https://deeptext.media/perl6-at-a-glance/ https://deeptext.media/perl6-at-a-glance/ https://deeptext.media/migrating-to-perl6 https://deeptext.media/migrating-to-perl6 https://www.amazon.com/Learning-program-Perl-Getting-programming-ebook/dp/B07221XCVL https://www.amazon.com/Learning-program-Perl-Getting-program...
  - throwaway7645 9y ago
    No idea the other ones came out so fast :)

dmytrish 9y ago

For small tasks I enjoy aesthetics of small dedicated Unix tools (grep, sed, awk, cut, sort) working together much more. Perl tries to be everything at once, still mysteriously lacking interactive REPL out of the box. Yes, Python is more heavyweight for scripting, but it pays in the long term with better maintenance and tooling for big scripts.

daotoad 9y ago
So do you like small tools or having everything built in (like a REPL)? It sounds like you are justifying an emotional attachment rather than making consistent arguments. Now, there is nothing wrong with having an emotional attachment to a language or other tool, as long as you know it for what it is. Python is a great language and has some really nice features, it's C extension system is miles better than Perl 5's horrible mess called XS. But to me, using it feels like wearing my shoes on the wrong feet, I really prefer Perl 5. From my experience and from listening to colleagues, Python has one edge on Perl 5. Perl 5 and Python have very similar tooling abilities. Long term maintenance of large systems is pretty much the same. Python has the edge in ability to find and hire qualified people because the community has done a better job articulating Python's strengths and recruiting new people.
b2gills 9y ago
The first version of Perl was basically combining many Unix tools together into one language, along with features from C, so that they are easier to use together. In fact there are two flip-flop operators that exist in Perl 5, one which works like the one in awk `..` , and the other like the one in sed `...`. Perl 6 renames them to `ff` and `fff`. I remember hearing/reading that the release of Perl was delayed until a2p and s2p were written, specifically for people who used awk and sed to be able to get going quickly in Perl.