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Oh my why would anyone want to lean Perl anymore? Unless you are working with a legacy codebase learn Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Erlang, Scala, Haskell... in other

Oh my why would anyone want to lean Perl anymore? Unless you are working with a legacy codebase learn Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Erlang, Scala, Haskell... in other words run the f away from Perl if you can unless you are into S&M.

chromatic 15y ago
Oh my why would anyone want to lean Perl anymore? Because it's powerful, it's easy to start, it's flexible, it's productive, it's ubiquitous, and it has an unparalleled extension ecosystem devoted to quality and ease of use.
- derrickpetzold 15y ago
  lol so do all the languages mentioned above plus they are prettier.
  - rjbond3rd 15y ago
    I don't think you read what you're responding to. How can they all have an "unparalleled extension ecosystem"?
    - derrickpetzold 15y ago
      Thank you I did read the post. Python has pypi. Ruby has gems. I'm not going to google the rest but if they don't have one there is no reason why they can't. And FYI pypi is better than CPAN so all the other stuff in the that post is crap imho. I was a Perl dev for ~10 years. Now have about 5 worth of Python. So thank you.
      - chromatic 15y ago
        I'm not going to google the rest but if they don't have one there is no reason why they can't. That somehow fails to convince me that other language ecosystems parallel the CPAN in breadth, scope, maturity, and ecosystem. See CPAN Testers, for example.
        derrickpetzold 15y ago
        Oh my apologies I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything if that's what you are thinking. I was only stating fact based on my experience but that's okay just downvote this and make yourself right.
        kamaal 15y ago
        Nobody was down voting you to make themselves right. But the remarks that you made about CPAN to be frank didn't make any sense at all to anybody who has worked with CPAN seriously over years. Both in terms of quantity and quality CPAN beats any other scripting ecosystem by a very great margin. And its really not about the number of the modules. That many number of modules would not have been possible if Perl(syntax, extensions system) was not flexible enough to allow them. The traditional approach used by languages is to first build a set of semantics define a syntax and standard library for it. Then any other development in that language happens through frameworks and libraries. Perl is special in this case that Perl allows syntax extensions through modules. There fore you will find not just Modules to do your task, but also modules that add and extend to exiting Perl syntax with sugar. Perl 6 extends this concept further through grammars. How often and how many language are there today(Counting Python and Ruby especially) that can add something like Moose(Moosex extensions) and other syntactical extension to their language, without breaking backwards compatibility? Python took around 8 years and broke backwards compatibility to make as little changes as context of a for loop and print statement. Now imagine what it would take Python to fix its object system or its scoping problems.
        derrickpetzold 15y ago
        Thank you for the excellent reply. That was response I was hoping for. I don't know everything and I appreciate you talking on point and not just pressing the down arrow because someone said something you don't like. Regards,
        berntb 15y ago
        >>... not just pressing the down arrow because someone said something you don't like. Sigh... :-) He started: >>Nobody was down voting you to make themselves right. But the remarks that you made about CPAN to be frank didn't make any sense [etc] Are you really surprised about the down votes...?
      - Mithaldu 15y ago
        I don't know about python, but ruby's gems are quite inferior. Just two points: gems has no idea if any specific gem is already installed, so if you ask it to, it will just install over whatever is there, no matter if it's the same or not. Additionally it does not automatically run tests and abort if they fail, so the chance of installing a broken gem over your existing working gem is pretty big.
      - otterley 15y ago
        There is a culture of documentation, cooperation and tolerance in the Perl community that, IME, doesn't really exist for other language communities (Ruby and Python). Compare, for example, AnyEvent's documentation with that of Twisted - or any of Perl's standard documentation with that of Ruby.
kamaal 15y ago
Legacy? I hear about new Perl projects starting in large enterprises everyday! Unless you are in the web programming domain(Somehow web developers think their's is the only software being written in the whole world) where your Python and Ruby frameworks seem to be famous. Perl is pretty big in the backend. Perl is here to stay, and its simply too useful to be going away anytime soon.
- derrickpetzold 15y ago
  Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...
  - kamaal 15y ago
    I didn't get your point. I have found Perl(And many have) very useful for whatever we do. So we continue to use it. Just because there is some new shiny stuff around, we don't use just for the sake for using it. Trolling Perl to advocate Python hasn't helped for decades and won't help now either. A better debate will be to argue on technical merits. Trolling and whining gets people curious to verify if all that is true, thereby forcing them to read and some readers adopt it too.
    - derrickpetzold 15y ago
      To be fair I didn't think I was trolling but I can completely understand why you think I was. I could only talk about things I as knew them to be. Whether that makes me an ass or an idiot I don't care. I did want to hear a good argument as why I was wrong and again I appreciate your reply. EDIT: My original comment was really just meant to be humorous I am sure know why since you are aware of Perl's syntax. It did make me a lot of money at a time but nevertheless I stand by what I said as that is the best advice I could give myself right now.

chromatic 15y ago

Oh my why would anyone want to lean Perl anymore? Because it's powerful, it's easy to start, it's flexible, it's productive, it's ubiquitous, and it has an unparalleled extension ecosystem devoted to quality and ease of use.

derrickpetzold 15y ago
lol so do all the languages mentioned above plus they are prettier.
- rjbond3rd 15y ago
  I don't think you read what you're responding to. How can they all have an "unparalleled extension ecosystem"?
  - derrickpetzold 15y ago
    Thank you I did read the post. Python has pypi. Ruby has gems. I'm not going to google the rest but if they don't have one there is no reason why they can't. And FYI pypi is better than CPAN so all the other stuff in the that post is crap imho. I was a Perl dev for ~10 years. Now have about 5 worth of Python. So thank you.
    - chromatic 15y ago
      I'm not going to google the rest but if they don't have one there is no reason why they can't. That somehow fails to convince me that other language ecosystems parallel the CPAN in breadth, scope, maturity, and ecosystem. See CPAN Testers, for example.
      - derrickpetzold 15y ago
        Oh my apologies I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything if that's what you are thinking. I was only stating fact based on my experience but that's okay just downvote this and make yourself right.
        kamaal 15y ago
        Nobody was down voting you to make themselves right. But the remarks that you made about CPAN to be frank didn't make any sense at all to anybody who has worked with CPAN seriously over years. Both in terms of quantity and quality CPAN beats any other scripting ecosystem by a very great margin. And its really not about the number of the modules. That many number of modules would not have been possible if Perl(syntax, extensions system) was not flexible enough to allow them. The traditional approach used by languages is to first build a set of semantics define a syntax and standard library for it. Then any other development in that language happens through frameworks and libraries. Perl is special in this case that Perl allows syntax extensions through modules. There fore you will find not just Modules to do your task, but also modules that add and extend to exiting Perl syntax with sugar. Perl 6 extends this concept further through grammars. How often and how many language are there today(Counting Python and Ruby especially) that can add something like Moose(Moosex extensions) and other syntactical extension to their language, without breaking backwards compatibility? Python took around 8 years and broke backwards compatibility to make as little changes as context of a for loop and print statement. Now imagine what it would take Python to fix its object system or its scoping problems.
        derrickpetzold 15y ago
        Thank you for the excellent reply. That was response I was hoping for. I don't know everything and I appreciate you talking on point and not just pressing the down arrow because someone said something you don't like. Regards,
        berntb 15y ago
        >>... not just pressing the down arrow because someone said something you don't like. Sigh... :-) He started: >>Nobody was down voting you to make themselves right. But the remarks that you made about CPAN to be frank didn't make any sense [etc] Are you really surprised about the down votes...?
    - Mithaldu 15y ago
      I don't know about python, but ruby's gems are quite inferior. Just two points: gems has no idea if any specific gem is already installed, so if you ask it to, it will just install over whatever is there, no matter if it's the same or not. Additionally it does not automatically run tests and abort if they fail, so the chance of installing a broken gem over your existing working gem is pretty big.
    - otterley 15y ago
      There is a culture of documentation, cooperation and tolerance in the Perl community that, IME, doesn't really exist for other language communities (Ruby and Python). Compare, for example, AnyEvent's documentation with that of Twisted - or any of Perl's standard documentation with that of Ruby.

kamaal 15y ago

Legacy? I hear about new Perl projects starting in large enterprises everyday! Unless you are in the web programming domain(Somehow web developers think their's is the only software being written in the whole world) where your Python and Ruby frameworks seem to be famous. Perl is pretty big in the backend. Perl is here to stay, and its simply too useful to be going away anytime soon.

derrickpetzold 15y ago
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...
- kamaal 15y ago
  I didn't get your point. I have found Perl(And many have) very useful for whatever we do. So we continue to use it. Just because there is some new shiny stuff around, we don't use just for the sake for using it. Trolling Perl to advocate Python hasn't helped for decades and won't help now either. A better debate will be to argue on technical merits. Trolling and whining gets people curious to verify if all that is true, thereby forcing them to read and some readers adopt it too.
  - derrickpetzold 15y ago
    To be fair I didn't think I was trolling but I can completely understand why you think I was. I could only talk about things I as knew them to be. Whether that makes me an ass or an idiot I don't care. I did want to hear a good argument as why I was wrong and again I appreciate your reply. EDIT: My original comment was really just meant to be humorous I am sure know why since you are aware of Perl's syntax. It did make me a lot of money at a time but nevertheless I stand by what I said as that is the best advice I could give myself right now.