3 ms·

I think it was one of the first (possibly the first) to introduce serious package management and that had a lot to do with its sudden popularity. Suddenly devel

I think it was one of the first (possibly the first) to introduce serious package management and that had a lot to do with its sudden popularity. Suddenly developers could build upon each other's work really easily. That was definitely the jesustech of its day. Perl's weak type system and cryptic syntactic muck probably had a lot to do with its decline.

acdha 8y ago
One of Perl 5’s big flaws was not having an object system in the language. Different people wrote different modules on CPAN, which was deservedly popular in those days, but it often meant you’d have to kludge interfaces between multiple third party systems and other things people hacked together. That and the syntax were why I added Perl to my bash policy that any program big enough to require scrolling would be ported to Python. Usually the richer standard library also meant that the new version ended up considerably smaller, too.
- b2gills 8y ago
  Perl 5 does have an object system, one that was based in no small part on Python. About the biggest difference is the built-in constructor `bless` is simplistic, and should be wrapped in a method. class Person: def __init__(self, name): self.name = name def sayHi(self): print 'Hello, my name is', self.name p = Person('Swaroop') p.sayHi() In Perl 5 #!/usr/bin/perl use v5.12; use warnings; use feature 'signatures'; no warnings 'experimental'; # Allows for Python style constructor syntax sub Person { Person->new(@_); } package Person { # this could be added to a base class instead sub new($class, @args){ my $obj = bless {}, $class; $obj->__init__(@args); $obj; } sub __init__($self, $name){ $self->{name} = $name; } sub sayHi($self){ say 'Hello, my name is ', $self->{name} } } my $p = Person('Swaroop'); $p->sayHi(); From a structural point of view, there is almost no difference. What little semantic difference there is could be put into a module. Not that I would write it that way when Moose-like class modules exist # Allows for Python style constructor syntax sub Person($name){ # use the default constructor Person->new( name => $name ); } package Person { use Moo; no warnings 'experimental'; # subroutine signatures has name => ( is => 'ro' ); sub sayHi($self){ say 'Hello, my name is ', $self->{name} } } my $p = Person('Swaroop'); $p->sayHi Moose was based on an early design for classes in Perl 6. (and is apparently so good there are implementations of Moose in Python and Ruby) class Person { has $.name; method sayHi(){ say 'Hello, my name is ', $.name } # Allows for Python style constructor syntax submethod CALL-ME($name){ self.new( :$name ) } } my \p = Person('Swaroop'); p.sayHi(); Whenever you are rewriting code, you will see ways of making it simpler and more concise. So there are probably just as many instances where if you translated from Python to Perl 5 it would come out shorter. (Or even Python⇒Python, Perl5⇒Perl5)

acdha 8y ago

One of Perl 5’s big flaws was not having an object system in the language. Different people wrote different modules on CPAN, which was deservedly popular in those days, but it often meant you’d have to kludge interfaces between multiple third party systems and other things people hacked together. That and the syntax were why I added Perl to my bash policy that any program big enough to require scrolling would be ported to Python. Usually the richer standard library also meant that the new version ended up considerably smaller, too.

b2gills 8y ago
Perl 5 does have an object system, one that was based in no small part on Python. About the biggest difference is the built-in constructor `bless` is simplistic, and should be wrapped in a method. class Person: def __init__(self, name): self.name = name def sayHi(self): print 'Hello, my name is', self.name p = Person('Swaroop') p.sayHi() In Perl 5 #!/usr/bin/perl use v5.12; use warnings; use feature 'signatures'; no warnings 'experimental'; # Allows for Python style constructor syntax sub Person { Person->new(@_); } package Person { # this could be added to a base class instead sub new($class, @args){ my $obj = bless {}, $class; $obj->__init__(@args); $obj; } sub __init__($self, $name){ $self->{name} = $name; } sub sayHi($self){ say 'Hello, my name is ', $self->{name} } } my $p = Person('Swaroop'); $p->sayHi(); From a structural point of view, there is almost no difference. What little semantic difference there is could be put into a module. Not that I would write it that way when Moose-like class modules exist # Allows for Python style constructor syntax sub Person($name){ # use the default constructor Person->new( name => $name ); } package Person { use Moo; no warnings 'experimental'; # subroutine signatures has name => ( is => 'ro' ); sub sayHi($self){ say 'Hello, my name is ', $self->{name} } } my $p = Person('Swaroop'); $p->sayHi Moose was based on an early design for classes in Perl 6. (and is apparently so good there are implementations of Moose in Python and Ruby) class Person { has $.name; method sayHi(){ say 'Hello, my name is ', $.name } # Allows for Python style constructor syntax submethod CALL-ME($name){ self.new( :$name ) } } my \p = Person('Swaroop'); p.sayHi(); Whenever you are rewriting code, you will see ways of making it simpler and more concise. So there are probably just as many instances where if you translated from Python to Perl 5 it would come out shorter. (Or even Python⇒Python, Perl5⇒Perl5)