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I rather learn what $_ means in Perl, just like I know what % means in math or @@ in Ruby, than have to close blocks with things like '))))))))))))))))))' in Li

I rather learn what $_ means in Perl, just like I know what % means in math or @@ in Ruby, than have to close blocks with things like '))))))))))))))))))' in Lisp languages. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Metrics? How about job trends? http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=perl&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=perl&l= Facts? How about blekko.com and duckduckgo.com, two search engines written in Perl?

wyuenho 16y ago
It's not about beauty, it's about the ramp-up speed. When Perl was invented, it was really easy to get up to speed if you were already coding a lot in `sh` and `awk` and `make`. You sort of already know the meanings of the punctuations. These days, the most widely recognized punctuations students and other new programmer know are math symbols, so learning a new language that reuse these are far easier than learning Perl. After all, it's far easier to learn and remember French grammar and spellings if you are an English speaker, than to learn Chinese. For this reason alone, I stay clear from languages with a lot of punctuation symbol abuse, i.e. Ruby, Perl, Scala. Don't get me wrong I don't dismiss the continuing importance of Perl, that's why I was very careful in my wording (minus a spelling mistake). I don't think there's even 1 metric we can agree on when measuring language popularity (Python is ranked 4th on TIOBE and 6th on StackOverflow and there's exactly 0 job posting for it in Hong Kong), so never-mind 1 that tells me definitively that Perl is coming back. After all, for it to come back, it must have gone away before. Ever thought of why? Even if it is coming back, what's the significance? We've had other viable choices for a very long time now. Python, PHP are all doing a very good job that Perl was traditionally good at. Hell, I'd even throw in Ruby as another viable choice too. Arguing success stories is kind of pointless too, theoretically I can write anything in any Turing-Complete language, so for all I care I could have written Blekko and DuckDuckGo in assembly.
- edenc 16y ago
  What the hell are you talking about? The only "weird" symbols you need for writing day-to-day perl code are the sigils. The only punctuation you need to use are things that are already well-established in basic math and other very traditional programming languages: commas (list building), exclamation marks (negation), question marks (branching), colons and semicolons (statement ending).
- edenc 16y ago
  Theoretically, you could also hardwire the entire system into the hardware like in the ENIAC days, no need for a language at all. Theoretically, you could write solutions for np-complete and AI problems with a simple brute-force algorithm. But anyone with a clue knows that's not the case.

wyuenho 16y ago

It's not about beauty, it's about the ramp-up speed. When Perl was invented, it was really easy to get up to speed if you were already coding a lot in `sh` and `awk` and `make`. You sort of already know the meanings of the punctuations. These days, the most widely recognized punctuations students and other new programmer know are math symbols, so learning a new language that reuse these are far easier than learning Perl. After all, it's far easier to learn and remember French grammar and spellings if you are an English speaker, than to learn Chinese. For this reason alone, I stay clear from languages with a lot of punctuation symbol abuse, i.e. Ruby, Perl, Scala. Don't get me wrong I don't dismiss the continuing importance of Perl, that's why I was very careful in my wording (minus a spelling mistake). I don't think there's even 1 metric we can agree on when measuring language popularity (Python is ranked 4th on TIOBE and 6th on StackOverflow and there's exactly 0 job posting for it in Hong Kong), so never-mind 1 that tells me definitively that Perl is coming back. After all, for it to come back, it must have gone away before. Ever thought of why? Even if it is coming back, what's the significance? We've had other viable choices for a very long time now. Python, PHP are all doing a very good job that Perl was traditionally good at. Hell, I'd even throw in Ruby as another viable choice too. Arguing success stories is kind of pointless too, theoretically I can write anything in any Turing-Complete language, so for all I care I could have written Blekko and DuckDuckGo in assembly.

edenc 16y ago
What the hell are you talking about? The only "weird" symbols you need for writing day-to-day perl code are the sigils. The only punctuation you need to use are things that are already well-established in basic math and other very traditional programming languages: commas (list building), exclamation marks (negation), question marks (branching), colons and semicolons (statement ending).
edenc 16y ago
Theoretically, you could also hardwire the entire system into the hardware like in the ENIAC days, no need for a language at all. Theoretically, you could write solutions for np-complete and AI problems with a simple brute-force algorithm. But anyone with a clue knows that's not the case.