4 ms·

> I also wasn't really focused on "@%$" specifically but you had brought it up My involvement in this conversation started with quoting you saying that one of

by kbp 9y ago

> I also wasn't really focused on "@%$" specifically but you had brought it up My involvement in this conversation started with quoting you saying that one of the major reasons for Perl becoming disliked was "PERL's usage of sigils.[1] One the one hand, it makes code compact and terse". Perl's use of sigils has nothing to do with terseness, and since Perl lost its mindshare to Ruby and Python which to the tiny extent that sigils contribute to terseness/verbosity are more terse, I don't think that's a valid point about Perl's trajectory. > I get this weird feeling that I'm discussing with someone who's emotionally invested in Perl and he feels like I'm bashing Perl. I don't even know Perl, I'm just critiquing your logic. > Perl syntax such as "<>" '<' and '>' are not used as sigils in Perl.

jasode 9y ago
>, I don't think that's a valid point about Perl's trajectory. Again, the "Perl lost to Python/Ruby ... terseness" connection is your narrative, not mine. I feel you have my comments mixed up with someone else. >'<' and '>' are not used as sigils in Perl. I agree and I didn't say they were. That's 3 cases of nitpicking something I actually didn't claim. I can only assume this over-interpretation of things I didn't write is a result of some underlying irritation that I caused. Let's just stop. Peace.
- kbp 9y ago
  > Again, the "Perl lost to Python/Ruby ... terseness" connection is your narrative, not mine. Well, if you just weren't considering Python and Ruby, then aren't they counter-examples to your point? They're terser than Perl in that regard; if that's a major reason people moved away from Perl, then why did so many of them move to those languages? > I agree and I didn't say they were. Then why did you bring them up in a discussion about sigils?
  - jasode 9y ago
    >They're terser than Perl in that regard; Again, that wasn't the "regard" I was focused on. It wasn't strlen(Perl_syntax) to strlen(Python_syntax). It's not about counting characters. It was terseness of non-obvious meanings for symbols which reduced readability for many. Yes, "$foo=7" is literally 1 character longer than "foo=7" which seems to violate terseness. (This is the example you seem to always gravitate back to.) For the 2nd time, I'm stressing that I already agree with that definition. However, that wasn't what I was talking about. People unfamiliar with a language that happens to have "ArrayList" spelled out will see as not being as terse as "@". It's a different axis of terseness. This cognitive readability is orthogonal to whether people migrate to Python because it's 1 less character type in front of a variable name. >Then why did you bring them up in a discussion about sigils? I wasn't talking about sigils exclusively by that point. I was talking about overall readability and "line noise" to fill out the C# story.
    - kbp 9y ago
      > Yes, "$foo=7" is literally 1 character longer than "foo=7" which seems to violate terseness. (This is the example you seem to always gravitate back to.) For the 2nd time, I'm stressing that I already agree with that definition. However, that wasn't what I was talking about. People unfamiliar with a language that happens to have "ArrayList" spelled out is not as terse as "@". I gravitate back to sigils because your point, that sigils' terseness contributed majorly to Perl's decline, was all I was objecting to. Python, Ruby, and Javascript don't spell out ArrayList either, yet those languages are now being used in most of the places where Perl used to be used. I ask again, if that was a major reason people left Perl, then why did the people who had that problem move to other languages that are even terser (ie, they don't spell out ArrayList and they don't even use sigils)?
      - jasode 9y ago
        >I gravitate back to sigils because your point, that sigils' terseness contributed majorly to Perl's decline, I didn't tie sigils to the "decline" -- I tied it to the survey's "dislike". I also didn't claim Perl sigils is what drove Python/Ruby adoption. I never claimed a logical cause and effect between sigils and Perl's decline. Indeed, the Rust language adds a whole new taxonomy of sigils[1] and it's on the upswing in popularity. (Of course, someone will probably come along and think I claimed that "adding sigils to Rust contributed to its growing popularity".) The decline of Perl's mindshare for new domains was totally separate from "sigils". The usage decline was a 2nd observation of why Perl topped the charts of "most disliked" languages. >then why did the people who had that problem move to other languages that are even terser You're asking that question because you're still focused on only one string length definition of "terse". Let me try another way: strlen(Rust_code) > strlen(Python_code) ... and yet... Rust can still be perceived as more terse than Python. Why? Because special non-obvious symbols that "don't explain themselves" are perceived as terse. This leads to the paradox that adding to the text length makes it more terse. Lastly, not all opinions about Perl's reputation for terseness comes from Python/Ruby programmers. [1] https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Sigil-reference.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Si...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

by kbp 9y ago

jasode 9y ago

>, I don't think that's a valid point about Perl's trajectory. Again, the "Perl lost to Python/Ruby ... terseness" connection is your narrative, not mine. I feel you have my comments mixed up with someone else. >'<' and '>' are not used as sigils in Perl. I agree and I didn't say they were. That's 3 cases of nitpicking something I actually didn't claim. I can only assume this over-interpretation of things I didn't write is a result of some underlying irritation that I caused. Let's just stop. Peace.

kbp 9y ago
> Again, the "Perl lost to Python/Ruby ... terseness" connection is your narrative, not mine. Well, if you just weren't considering Python and Ruby, then aren't they counter-examples to your point? They're terser than Perl in that regard; if that's a major reason people moved away from Perl, then why did so many of them move to those languages? > I agree and I didn't say they were. Then why did you bring them up in a discussion about sigils?
- jasode 9y ago
  >They're terser than Perl in that regard; Again, that wasn't the "regard" I was focused on. It wasn't strlen(Perl_syntax) to strlen(Python_syntax). It's not about counting characters. It was terseness of non-obvious meanings for symbols which reduced readability for many. Yes, "$foo=7" is literally 1 character longer than "foo=7" which seems to violate terseness. (This is the example you seem to always gravitate back to.) For the 2nd time, I'm stressing that I already agree with that definition. However, that wasn't what I was talking about. People unfamiliar with a language that happens to have "ArrayList" spelled out will see as not being as terse as "@". It's a different axis of terseness. This cognitive readability is orthogonal to whether people migrate to Python because it's 1 less character type in front of a variable name. >Then why did you bring them up in a discussion about sigils? I wasn't talking about sigils exclusively by that point. I was talking about overall readability and "line noise" to fill out the C# story.
  - kbp 9y ago
    > Yes, "$foo=7" is literally 1 character longer than "foo=7" which seems to violate terseness. (This is the example you seem to always gravitate back to.) For the 2nd time, I'm stressing that I already agree with that definition. However, that wasn't what I was talking about. People unfamiliar with a language that happens to have "ArrayList" spelled out is not as terse as "@". I gravitate back to sigils because your point, that sigils' terseness contributed majorly to Perl's decline, was all I was objecting to. Python, Ruby, and Javascript don't spell out ArrayList either, yet those languages are now being used in most of the places where Perl used to be used. I ask again, if that was a major reason people left Perl, then why did the people who had that problem move to other languages that are even terser (ie, they don't spell out ArrayList and they don't even use sigils)?
    - jasode 9y ago
      >I gravitate back to sigils because your point, that sigils' terseness contributed majorly to Perl's decline, I didn't tie sigils to the "decline" -- I tied it to the survey's "dislike". I also didn't claim Perl sigils is what drove Python/Ruby adoption. I never claimed a logical cause and effect between sigils and Perl's decline. Indeed, the Rust language adds a whole new taxonomy of sigils[1] and it's on the upswing in popularity. (Of course, someone will probably come along and think I claimed that "adding sigils to Rust contributed to its growing popularity".) The decline of Perl's mindshare for new domains was totally separate from "sigils". The usage decline was a 2nd observation of why Perl topped the charts of "most disliked" languages. >then why did the people who had that problem move to other languages that are even terser You're asking that question because you're still focused on only one string length definition of "terse". Let me try another way: strlen(Rust_code) > strlen(Python_code) ... and yet... Rust can still be perceived as more terse than Python. Why? Because special non-obvious symbols that "don't explain themselves" are perceived as terse. This leads to the paradox that adding to the text length makes it more terse. Lastly, not all opinions about Perl's reputation for terseness comes from Python/Ruby programmers. [1] https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Sigil-reference.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Si...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]