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Because with its declining popularity, most people here are unfamiliar with the language except for its meme status as "that weird line noise language". Things
by sundarurfriend 5y ago
Because with its declining popularity, most people here are unfamiliar with the language except for its meme status as "that weird line noise language". Things that confirm pre-existing beliefs are easy to accept and upvote, whereas good Perl code would require (a) some actual thinking, and (b) challenging the socially accepted narrative - both of which are relatively much harder.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y agoGood Perl code would also look pretty boring, almost like enterprise Java. I'd wager that all code that "just works", in any language, looks bland and predictable. But I'd rather have that than cute and clever any day.
- anthk 5y agoGood Perl looks like a mix between structured SH and a dumbed down C with no pointers. Boring, as you say. But it works.
- hnick 5y agoYou say that but a lot of people just can't get over the sigils.
- sundarurfriend 5y agoAnd a lot of people just can't get over significant whitespace, and curly braces, and lispy parantheses, and semicolons. No syntax can please everyone, especially so with people unfamiliar with the language they're looking at.
- anthk 5y agoTrue, most Gen-Z ers know nil. First they should try Perl as if it was a tuned up AWK, and then, read the Orelly Perl books as if they were a religion. https://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/perl4/index.htm https://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/perl4/index.htm
- kqr 5y agoAfaik Perl is not declining in popularity, it's just not growing in popularity as fast as many other languages, so it's market share shrinks while the number of users it has grows.