5 ms·

In the same boat on the "why haven't people moved on"... Perl use to be ubiquitous but over time it's really gone to the wayside vs. Python tooling for more com

In the same boat on the "why haven't people moved on"... Perl use to be ubiquitous but over time it's really gone to the wayside vs. Python tooling for more complex stuff, and back to basic BASH for the simple scripting needs. Every time Perl comes up in a professional environment for me I'm reluctant to say I'm capable, because it's always a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company. (obviously this is VERY anecdotal to my career) I dropped Perl from my resume about a decade ago because I just frankly don't want to work with it. The language is terse, and I don't think anyone who's starting off these days would be spending their time well by learning it. Make your own opinions, but mine is/has always been "ewww."

overcast 7y ago
Definitely not anecdotal, that's the story from EVERY company.
- lilSebastian 7y ago
  > EVERY company Not sure you know what the word every means.
lilSebastian 7y ago
> The language is terse Only if you chose to write perl code in this way. The same could be said for many languages
Touche 7y ago
> it's always a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company. (obviously this is VERY anecdotal to my career) That's what programming is.
- folkhack 7y ago
  > That's what programming is. In my realm I need things to be supportable by lots of people. I use languages that are modern + people want to use, I document like crazy, I use opinionated frameworks that have good track records, I need to hire engineers that can support the code I/others write, etc etc. I don't find your comment to be true, and will even go as far to say I've worked with very clean legacy code. Tangential: If you look at any "popularity of language" studies Perl has been on a downward spiral for over a decade. Ex: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/ I see "well that's just x" as a poor argument for, well... anything.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  False equivalence. I'd choose a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company written in Python over Perl any day.
bifrost 7y ago
Heh yeah, totally. The only Perl I use these days is oooooooold software (MRTG) I guess with the exception of Spam Assassin and RT...
- folkhack 7y ago
  Man - MRTG... I just had flashbacks to my youth. Loved that piece of software and used it for close to a decade! Anymore Grafana backed by InfluxDB w/Telegraf is my jam for the same general problem set (TIG stack).
  - bifrost 7y ago
    Yeah, I probably should update things but honestly if I'm going to do that I'm just going to write my own poller/scheduler and be done with it. RRD is pretty efficient so I don't have much need to change.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Ugh. Spam Assassin is so astronomically inefficient and power hungry, that there should be a cryptocurrency based on Proof of Spam Assassination.
  - bifrost 7y ago
    Be careful, "Spam on the Blockchain" will become a thing.
  - jlokier 7y ago
    Hah! You don't know how right you are... > there should be a cryptocurrency based on Proof of Spam Assassination Did you know that the blocking proof-of-work algorithm in Bitcoin today, derives from the Hashcash proof-of-work algorithm, which was originally designed to prove you are not a spammer!!
goatinaboat 7y ago
It’s the Perl culture, to do even simple things in the weirdest way possible and everyone will call you a wizard. Whereas the Python community praises complex ideas expressed as simple code and frowns on tricks. That’s why all but the the most obsessive have moved on. And from what I’ve seen Perl 6 takes it to the next level.
- __jal 7y ago
  You pretty clearly have very little familiarity with "Perl culture" and even less with Perl6/Raku. Perl 5 is in decline, no doubt. But it isn't because whomever you're visualizing when you wrote the above is an annoying nerd. People can and do disagree on the 'why'; I personally think it is the general decline of Unix-style syntax combined with the natural ebb and flow of language evolution. If "what you've seen" is watching the compiler developers work through language design, the origin of your misconception at least makes a little sense, even if that's obviously a weird, unfair basis. By all means, hate on perlmonks.org if you like. Just don't spread insulting nonsense.
  - xisukar 7y ago
    It's unfortunate but that's the bread-and-butter of comment sections mentioning Perl (Perl 5 and Perl 6). And what's with "the most obsessive"? What's this supposed to imply?
kazinator 7y ago
> it's always a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company. Oh man, in 1996 I was at Nortel. Some Ms. C. in Computer Science (no longer with the company) left behind Perl cruft whose indentation levels didn't even match up: whatever { } type of thing. He didn't know how to operate a programmer's text editor.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  The Broken Windows Theory may be bullshit when it comes to criminology, but I truly believe it applies to code. I've seen a lot of negligently written code with broken windows on the surface, that deep down turns out to be criminally insane. If somebody's doesn't give a shit enough to indent their code, they usually don't give a shit enough to design it either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
dana321 7y ago
I would rather deal with that than a project with millions of classes which are mostly empty full of useless comments that tell you nothing about how the project is put together.
ether_at_cpan 7y ago
> I dropped Perl from my resume about a decade ago because I just frankly don't want to work with it. That's exactly why I've never mentioned Java on my resume (or in earlier times, Visual Basic) =D

overcast 7y ago

Definitely not anecdotal, that's the story from EVERY company.

lilSebastian 7y ago
> EVERY company Not sure you know what the word every means.

lilSebastian 7y ago

> The language is terse Only if you chose to write perl code in this way. The same could be said for many languages

Touche 7y ago

> it's always a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company. (obviously this is VERY anecdotal to my career) That's what programming is.

folkhack 7y ago
> That's what programming is. In my realm I need things to be supportable by lots of people. I use languages that are modern + people want to use, I document like crazy, I use opinionated frameworks that have good track records, I need to hire engineers that can support the code I/others write, etc etc. I don't find your comment to be true, and will even go as far to say I've worked with very clean legacy code. Tangential: If you look at any "popularity of language" studies Perl has been on a downward spiral for over a decade. Ex: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/ I see "well that's just x" as a poor argument for, well... anything.
DonHopkins 7y ago
False equivalence. I'd choose a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company written in Python over Perl any day.

bifrost 7y ago

Heh yeah, totally. The only Perl I use these days is oooooooold software (MRTG) I guess with the exception of Spam Assassin and RT...

folkhack 7y ago
Man - MRTG... I just had flashbacks to my youth. Loved that piece of software and used it for close to a decade! Anymore Grafana backed by InfluxDB w/Telegraf is my jam for the same general problem set (TIG stack).
- bifrost 7y ago
  Yeah, I probably should update things but honestly if I'm going to do that I'm just going to write my own poller/scheduler and be done with it. RRD is pretty efficient so I don't have much need to change.
DonHopkins 7y ago
Ugh. Spam Assassin is so astronomically inefficient and power hungry, that there should be a cryptocurrency based on Proof of Spam Assassination.
- bifrost 7y ago
  Be careful, "Spam on the Blockchain" will become a thing.
- jlokier 7y ago
  Hah! You don't know how right you are... > there should be a cryptocurrency based on Proof of Spam Assassination Did you know that the blocking proof-of-work algorithm in Bitcoin today, derives from the Hashcash proof-of-work algorithm, which was originally designed to prove you are not a spammer!!

goatinaboat 7y ago

It’s the Perl culture, to do even simple things in the weirdest way possible and everyone will call you a wizard. Whereas the Python community praises complex ideas expressed as simple code and frowns on tricks. That’s why all but the the most obsessive have moved on. And from what I’ve seen Perl 6 takes it to the next level.

__jal 7y ago
You pretty clearly have very little familiarity with "Perl culture" and even less with Perl6/Raku. Perl 5 is in decline, no doubt. But it isn't because whomever you're visualizing when you wrote the above is an annoying nerd. People can and do disagree on the 'why'; I personally think it is the general decline of Unix-style syntax combined with the natural ebb and flow of language evolution. If "what you've seen" is watching the compiler developers work through language design, the origin of your misconception at least makes a little sense, even if that's obviously a weird, unfair basis. By all means, hate on perlmonks.org if you like. Just don't spread insulting nonsense.
- xisukar 7y ago
  It's unfortunate but that's the bread-and-butter of comment sections mentioning Perl (Perl 5 and Perl 6). And what's with "the most obsessive"? What's this supposed to imply?

kazinator 7y ago

> it's always a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company. Oh man, in 1996 I was at Nortel. Some Ms. C. in Computer Science (no longer with the company) left behind Perl cruft whose indentation levels didn't even match up: whatever { } type of thing. He didn't know how to operate a programmer's text editor.

DonHopkins 7y ago
The Broken Windows Theory may be bullshit when it comes to criminology, but I truly believe it applies to code. I've seen a lot of negligently written code with broken windows on the surface, that deep down turns out to be criminally insane. If somebody's doesn't give a shit enough to indent their code, they usually don't give a shit enough to design it either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

dana321 7y ago

I would rather deal with that than a project with millions of classes which are mostly empty full of useless comments that tell you nothing about how the project is put together.

ether_at_cpan 7y ago

> I dropped Perl from my resume about a decade ago because I just frankly don't want to work with it. That's exactly why I've never mentioned Java on my resume (or in earlier times, Visual Basic) =D