4 ms·

(Second try at this) First, anyone who says that Python or Ruby is not even comparable to Perl is full of it or very mistaken. They are close enough that we qu

(Second try at this) First, anyone who says that Python or Ruby is not even comparable to Perl is full of it or very mistaken. They are close enough that we quickly run into the narcissism of small differences [1]. Second, in my experience HN ranges from uninterested to hostile when it comes to Perl. I read lots about Perl, but many of the blogs or forums I frequent are Perl-centric. My point is simply that you shouldn't judge by "what you read" if what you read is a function of what you choose or who you follow. Third, and most importantly, the Perl5 community doesn't seem anywhere near dead. Off the top of my head, I'm particularly happy with a slew of new tools for working with Perl and CPAN: cpanm[2], perlbrew[3], cpan-outdated[4], pmuninstall[5], cpansearch [6] (written in C, but obviously made for the Perl community). There's also Plack[7] for modern Perl webapps. Finally, consider the whole Modern Perl[8] movement. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences [2] http://github.com/miyagawa/cpanminus http://github.com/miyagawa/cpanminus [3] http://github.com/gugod/App-perlbrew http://github.com/gugod/App-perlbrew [4] http://github.com/tokuhirom/cpan-outdated http://github.com/tokuhirom/cpan-outdated [5] http://github.com/xaicron/pm-uninstall http://github.com/xaicron/pm-uninstall [6] http://github.com/c9s/cpansearch http://github.com/c9s/cpansearch [7] http://plackperl.org/ http://plackperl.org/ [8] http://github.com/chromatic/modern_perl_book http://github.com/chromatic/modern_perl_book

wildjim 16y ago
For a while, maybe 5+ years ago (7? I can't remember clearly) it seemed like Perl was stagnating a little. This was about the time Ruby really seemed to take off, and some neat Python projects appeared (e.g. Gentoo Linux). Now, even though the core language hasn't changed, there seem to be all sorts of clever Perl modules appearing which take advantage of a lot of Perl's highly flexible nature. I really like Ruby myself, and really hate Python (even though I have to use it at work) but when the other languages fail me, I can almost always turn to Perl in a pinch and get it to do what I want. I also have to admit that the potential power of Perl6's syntax is a little astonishing; I think I would pick Perl6 over Ruby, for example.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > really hate Python Why?
  - mahmud 16y ago
    I can't speak for him, but it looks a lot like my pre-code scribbles. As someone who takes pride in being a fleshware translator of pseudo-code to real-code, I feel indignant at the sight of executable, Englishy specification. High praise or a heavy put-down? Also, I seem to hold the Guy Steele languages in highest regard, and consider the rest passable toys. C, Common Lisp, Scheme, Java, Fortran .. somehow they feel real. You crack open the spec and you're quickly welcomed into an intelligent dialog with the best minds in systems programming. I read several chapters of the Java spec last night and learned more about the language in one night than weeks of "googling" Ruby. The GSL-school of specification is precise, uses a well established vocabulary, and explains the syntactic and semantic rules of the language, along with their required execution environment. Not a word is said about add-on packages, installation crap, compiler internals or how to fork the language on github. Compare these two and see what I mean: http://docs.python.org/reference/index.html http://docs.python.org/reference/index.html http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/j3TOC.html http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/j3TOC.... See how much more detailed the Java specification is; although the language has more features, the spec manages to be much more succinct and precise. The Python spec is littered with references to "CPython" and the internals of an specific compiler.
    - mikeklaas 16y ago
      You are the first person I've encountered that thinks ill of the fact that Python reads like pseudo code. In my mind, it does it in a way that remains succinct and strict, thus avoiding the abomination of "enlishy" code (AppleScript, SQL to some extent, etc.)
      - mahmud 16y ago
        It was an earned compliment, given in reluctance.

wildjim 16y ago

For a while, maybe 5+ years ago (7? I can't remember clearly) it seemed like Perl was stagnating a little. This was about the time Ruby really seemed to take off, and some neat Python projects appeared (e.g. Gentoo Linux). Now, even though the core language hasn't changed, there seem to be all sorts of clever Perl modules appearing which take advantage of a lot of Perl's highly flexible nature. I really like Ruby myself, and really hate Python (even though I have to use it at work) but when the other languages fail me, I can almost always turn to Perl in a pinch and get it to do what I want. I also have to admit that the potential power of Perl6's syntax is a little astonishing; I think I would pick Perl6 over Ruby, for example.

jacquesm 16y ago
> really hate Python Why?
- mahmud 16y ago
  I can't speak for him, but it looks a lot like my pre-code scribbles. As someone who takes pride in being a fleshware translator of pseudo-code to real-code, I feel indignant at the sight of executable, Englishy specification. High praise or a heavy put-down? Also, I seem to hold the Guy Steele languages in highest regard, and consider the rest passable toys. C, Common Lisp, Scheme, Java, Fortran .. somehow they feel real. You crack open the spec and you're quickly welcomed into an intelligent dialog with the best minds in systems programming. I read several chapters of the Java spec last night and learned more about the language in one night than weeks of "googling" Ruby. The GSL-school of specification is precise, uses a well established vocabulary, and explains the syntactic and semantic rules of the language, along with their required execution environment. Not a word is said about add-on packages, installation crap, compiler internals or how to fork the language on github. Compare these two and see what I mean: http://docs.python.org/reference/index.html http://docs.python.org/reference/index.html http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/j3TOC.html http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/j3TOC.... See how much more detailed the Java specification is; although the language has more features, the spec manages to be much more succinct and precise. The Python spec is littered with references to "CPython" and the internals of an specific compiler.
  - mikeklaas 16y ago
    You are the first person I've encountered that thinks ill of the fact that Python reads like pseudo code. In my mind, it does it in a way that remains succinct and strict, thus avoiding the abomination of "enlishy" code (AppleScript, SQL to some extent, etc.)
    - mahmud 16y ago
      It was an earned compliment, given in reluctance.