5 ms·

May I point to the irony on posting why a language is not "the language of the future" on perl.org? [UPDATE: yes, please, down vote freely, because humor is da

May I point to the irony on posting why a language is not "the language of the future" on perl.org? [UPDATE: yes, please, down vote freely, because humor is dangerous].

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- nodata 15y ago
  That's a reactionary comment. We'll see if the post was right in a year or so.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    Well, sure, the post can be 100% right. It's the source that's the "ironic" part.
    - nodata 15y ago
      I'm not sure it's ironic - nobody uses Dart yet.
- sambeau 15y ago
  I think it's completely valid for a bunch of super-smart language geeks who have spent 10 years learning from their own mistakes to make comment on a new language, especially one that due to the backing of the biggest web company in the world will gain traction whether or not it it is any good.
  - Mithaldu 15y ago
    I wouldn't worry too much about traction. See Google Wave.
- mhd 15y ago
  Ad hominem, anyone? While "Perl" and language criticism in one headline might be worth a "teehee" moment, I fail to see any arguments in the article that seem to stem from the pedigree of the author. The only time he mentions Perl is when he's talking about threading, where there's some kind of feature parity – and he's not too happy about it. Never mind that Perl hackers do have a certain penchant for language hacking (understandably…), starting with a plethora of object systems (Moose getting quite popular) and ending in extreme absurdity[1]. [1]: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata.html http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata....
  - dextorious 15y ago
    > Ad hominem, anyone? While "Perl" and language criticism in one headline might be worth a "teehee" moment And my comment was just that: a "teehee" moment. Oh, and "ad hominem" means "against a person". I only pointed to the irony of future-language advice coming from the Perl camp, never said anything against the validity of said advice or the person giving it.
    - mhd 15y ago
      Note that I didn't reply to your original post. While one might argue whether this really is irony or just a tired "haha, Perl" joke (or about the applicability of ad hominem by association), I was referring to the more immediate "envy" issue. Not that I don't regret posting, as I don't think digressing in this direction is worth a discussion here – although that would've taken place without my contribution. "Perl, right, yafeelme?" is basically the "What's the deal with airline food?" of the programming world…
  - bad_user 15y ago
    Hey, some Perl hackers are not business types working on serious software, but some of them are great hackers nonetheless ... it's also a good thing you haven't seen Damian Conway in a presentation talking about programming in a Klingon dialect. Your head might have exploded from the sheer absurdity of it - but me, I was standing there thinking about a time when programming was fun for me and I loved every second of it. Also, calling an ad-hominem while insulting an entire community? Really?
- sambeau 15y ago
  It doesn't befit the HN community to be ridiculing the Perl community. First the Perl hackers were the original web start-ups. Many of the problems you don't have to worry about were either solved by them or were solved by people who wanted to fix things wrong with the Perl toolchain. This makes Perl a huge success in historical terms even if it on the wane today and, even if it is on the wane today, it is still used by many huge organisations. The Perl 6 project has been a worthwhile and fascinating project to follow for the past 10 years. While many see it purely as a failure there is a lot to praise and learn from in the experiment. Here's what I have learned from watching it for most of the early years: * Designing a new language by committee is very hard * Keeping a community focused on creating a Minimal Viable Product can be very hard * One bone-headed programmer can wreck a project * Very clever people can make very stupid decisions, especially when operating in a group * It is better to announce nothing than to announce and then not ship soon afterwards. The internet is like a child with ADHD Having said all of that Perl 6 is working now and has some fascinating, innovative features if (to many people's taste) wrapped in some ugly and frenetic syntax. Go read the history of Perl and Perl 6 before you just join the chorus of boots.
  - sambeau 15y ago
    There is a lot of great wisdom trapped in Dan Sugalski's blog. I've tried to recommend his articles before but they've never gained any traction. http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/ http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/ Of particular relevance here is his Parrot Retrospective: http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/000435.html http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/000435.html Especially the last two items. One being the list in the wrap-up: good advice and the other being the one about Leo—the man who single handily derailed Perl 6. One guy is pretty-much the reason we all laugh at Perl now. I watched it happen: he refused to build a MVP, he kept throwing away working code to re-architect it bigger and more convoluted ways. There's a big lesson there for every start-up. If you do take a look be sure to read Dan's well-written blogs about language design and implementation, especially those tagged "What The Heck Is:" http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/cat_what_the_heck_is.html http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/cat_what_the_heck_is... I've always held a lot of respect and sadness for Dan Sugalski. The guy was not only a brilliant architect and hacker but he had the knack for always being right. It's sad that he didn't stand his ground and was sadly pushed out of the project. I get the impression he had some tough times after that. If any of you guys see he CV come up you shouldn't think twice in giving him a senior role.
dillon 15y ago
I personally don't find an irony. Perl may not be the most popular language ever, but it definitely has its place. I do find an irony that the 0.1 specification of Perl is worst than the 0.1 specification of Dart.
- prakashk 15y ago
  But, keep in mind that Perl 0.1 wasn't intended to replace a Javascript-like language. It was created as a replacement for Unix shell, and tools like sed, awk etc.
- chromatic 15y ago
  I do find an irony that the 0.1 specification of Perl is worst than the 0.1 specification of Dart. Why is it surprising that a language designed to occupy a niche between shell and C in 1987 had a spec faster and looser than a language designed from (let's say) 2009 through 2011, based on an existing, popular, and well-understood language with well-publicized flaws?
- njharman 15y ago
  > Perl may not be the most popular language ever, but it definitely has its place. Sure, but is it? Does it have any chance at all of being "the language of the future"? Or, is it a very old, mature language that has reached a plateau or is in slow decline?
mthreat 15y ago
I also find it ironic that this link to perl.org took 15 seconds to respond.
buster 15y ago
Despite all your downvotes i thought the same when reading (perl.org) behind the headline ;)

May I point to the irony on posting why a language is not "the language of the future" on perl.org? [UPDATE: yes, please, down vote freely, because humor is dangerous].

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

nodata 15y ago
That's a reactionary comment. We'll see if the post was right in a year or so.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Well, sure, the post can be 100% right. It's the source that's the "ironic" part.
  - nodata 15y ago
    I'm not sure it's ironic - nobody uses Dart yet.
sambeau 15y ago
I think it's completely valid for a bunch of super-smart language geeks who have spent 10 years learning from their own mistakes to make comment on a new language, especially one that due to the backing of the biggest web company in the world will gain traction whether or not it it is any good.
- Mithaldu 15y ago
  I wouldn't worry too much about traction. See Google Wave.
mhd 15y ago
Ad hominem, anyone? While "Perl" and language criticism in one headline might be worth a "teehee" moment, I fail to see any arguments in the article that seem to stem from the pedigree of the author. The only time he mentions Perl is when he's talking about threading, where there's some kind of feature parity – and he's not too happy about it. Never mind that Perl hackers do have a certain penchant for language hacking (understandably…), starting with a plethora of object systems (Moose getting quite popular) and ending in extreme absurdity[1]. [1]: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata.html http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata....
- dextorious 15y ago
  > Ad hominem, anyone? While "Perl" and language criticism in one headline might be worth a "teehee" moment And my comment was just that: a "teehee" moment. Oh, and "ad hominem" means "against a person". I only pointed to the irony of future-language advice coming from the Perl camp, never said anything against the validity of said advice or the person giving it.
  - mhd 15y ago
    Note that I didn't reply to your original post. While one might argue whether this really is irony or just a tired "haha, Perl" joke (or about the applicability of ad hominem by association), I was referring to the more immediate "envy" issue. Not that I don't regret posting, as I don't think digressing in this direction is worth a discussion here – although that would've taken place without my contribution. "Perl, right, yafeelme?" is basically the "What's the deal with airline food?" of the programming world…
- bad_user 15y ago
  Hey, some Perl hackers are not business types working on serious software, but some of them are great hackers nonetheless ... it's also a good thing you haven't seen Damian Conway in a presentation talking about programming in a Klingon dialect. Your head might have exploded from the sheer absurdity of it - but me, I was standing there thinking about a time when programming was fun for me and I loved every second of it. Also, calling an ad-hominem while insulting an entire community? Really?
sambeau 15y ago
It doesn't befit the HN community to be ridiculing the Perl community. First the Perl hackers were the original web start-ups. Many of the problems you don't have to worry about were either solved by them or were solved by people who wanted to fix things wrong with the Perl toolchain. This makes Perl a huge success in historical terms even if it on the wane today and, even if it is on the wane today, it is still used by many huge organisations. The Perl 6 project has been a worthwhile and fascinating project to follow for the past 10 years. While many see it purely as a failure there is a lot to praise and learn from in the experiment. Here's what I have learned from watching it for most of the early years: * Designing a new language by committee is very hard * Keeping a community focused on creating a Minimal Viable Product can be very hard * One bone-headed programmer can wreck a project * Very clever people can make very stupid decisions, especially when operating in a group * It is better to announce nothing than to announce and then not ship soon afterwards. The internet is like a child with ADHD Having said all of that Perl 6 is working now and has some fascinating, innovative features if (to many people's taste) wrapped in some ugly and frenetic syntax. Go read the history of Perl and Perl 6 before you just join the chorus of boots.
- sambeau 15y ago
  There is a lot of great wisdom trapped in Dan Sugalski's blog. I've tried to recommend his articles before but they've never gained any traction. http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/ http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/ Of particular relevance here is his Parrot Retrospective: http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/000435.html http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/000435.html Especially the last two items. One being the list in the wrap-up: good advice and the other being the one about Leo—the man who single handily derailed Perl 6. One guy is pretty-much the reason we all laugh at Perl now. I watched it happen: he refused to build a MVP, he kept throwing away working code to re-architect it bigger and more convoluted ways. There's a big lesson there for every start-up. If you do take a look be sure to read Dan's well-written blogs about language design and implementation, especially those tagged "What The Heck Is:" http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/cat_what_the_heck_is.html http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/cat_what_the_heck_is... I've always held a lot of respect and sadness for Dan Sugalski. The guy was not only a brilliant architect and hacker but he had the knack for always being right. It's sad that he didn't stand his ground and was sadly pushed out of the project. I get the impression he had some tough times after that. If any of you guys see he CV come up you shouldn't think twice in giving him a senior role.

dillon 15y ago

I personally don't find an irony. Perl may not be the most popular language ever, but it definitely has its place. I do find an irony that the 0.1 specification of Perl is worst than the 0.1 specification of Dart.

prakashk 15y ago
But, keep in mind that Perl 0.1 wasn't intended to replace a Javascript-like language. It was created as a replacement for Unix shell, and tools like sed, awk etc.
chromatic 15y ago
I do find an irony that the 0.1 specification of Perl is worst than the 0.1 specification of Dart. Why is it surprising that a language designed to occupy a niche between shell and C in 1987 had a spec faster and looser than a language designed from (let's say) 2009 through 2011, based on an existing, popular, and well-understood language with well-publicized flaws?
njharman 15y ago
> Perl may not be the most popular language ever, but it definitely has its place. Sure, but is it? Does it have any chance at all of being "the language of the future"? Or, is it a very old, mature language that has reached a plateau or is in slow decline?

mthreat 15y ago

I also find it ironic that this link to perl.org took 15 seconds to respond.

buster 15y ago

Despite all your downvotes i thought the same when reading (perl.org) behind the headline ;)