4 ms·

The great downfall of Perl is that it's slow: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/which-programming-languages-are-fastest.php http://shootout.alioth.debian.or

The great downfall of Perl is that it's slow: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/which-programming-languages-are-fastest.php http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/which-programming-lang... 60X slower than C. 30X slower than Java If sed/awk/grep/sort/tr is not up the task, sure, try Perl for those one offs. For serious computation? Fuggedit.

bitcracker 15y ago
> The great downfall of Perl is that it's slow: What about Perl6 and LLVM? My personal experience with Perl5: - It has incomparable expressiveness. Only APL is more expressive. But more expressiveness makes source code less readable. - Perl's regexp engine is the best - no doubt about it. - I would never use Perl for big projects. Its odd syntax ($, sometimes %,... before variable names etc.) is terrible for long term maintainability.
- chromatic 15y ago
  What about [Perl 6] and LLVM? No Perl 6 implementation is mature enough to use for practical purposes. LLVM probably won't help Perl 5, because Perl 5 lacks sufficient type information, and because LLVM's design really seems to want static languages. See also the JVM and the CLR. Its odd syntax ... is terrible for long term maintainability. I would never attempt to maintain code written in a language I don't know.
  - bitcracker 15y ago
    > I would never attempt to maintain code written in a language I don't know. I know Perl 5 well enough but will my successors also? Is Perl still rising? I don't think so.
    - chromatic 15y ago
      I know Perl 5 well enough but will my successors also? That sounds like a hiring and training question.
      - bitcracker 15y ago
        > That sounds like a hiring and training question. Yes, Fortran, APL and Ada had the same questions.
        chromatic 15y ago
        If only they had a CPAN growth rate to measure.
        greenName 15y ago
        "compilable perl" has been "on the horizon" for 15 years. I suggest you not measure it by that rate.
        chromatic 15y ago
        I don't know what "compilable Perl" has to do with the CPAN. "Compilation" suggests some sort of execution and distribution strategy, while the CPAN is an archive of resuable code and the surrounding ecosystem of dependency management, documentation, bug tracking, history, annotation, and comprehensive testing around it. I'm suggesting that if you measure the amount of code submitted to the CPAN, the number of authors, the frequency of updates, and the freshness of versions, you'll see that Perl 5 is far from stagnant.
        bitcracker 15y ago
        > you'll see that Perl 5 is far from stagnant. You mean CPAN is far from stagnant. CPAN is nice, yes, but I don't think CPAN alone is enough to invite newcomers to Perl. Perl 5 itself is stagnant. New features are not developed in Perl 5 but Perl 6. Perl 6 ist still not mature after several years of development. I tried it on Parrot yesterday, it ran way slower than Perl 5. Who ever would use it when even the Perl advocates don't recommend it? Perl 6 looked so promising. I am disappointed.
        15y ago

bitcracker 15y ago

> The great downfall of Perl is that it's slow: What about Perl6 and LLVM? My personal experience with Perl5: - It has incomparable expressiveness. Only APL is more expressive. But more expressiveness makes source code less readable. - Perl's regexp engine is the best - no doubt about it. - I would never use Perl for big projects. Its odd syntax ($, sometimes %,... before variable names etc.) is terrible for long term maintainability.

chromatic 15y ago
What about [Perl 6] and LLVM? No Perl 6 implementation is mature enough to use for practical purposes. LLVM probably won't help Perl 5, because Perl 5 lacks sufficient type information, and because LLVM's design really seems to want static languages. See also the JVM and the CLR. Its odd syntax ... is terrible for long term maintainability. I would never attempt to maintain code written in a language I don't know.
- bitcracker 15y ago
  > I would never attempt to maintain code written in a language I don't know. I know Perl 5 well enough but will my successors also? Is Perl still rising? I don't think so.
  - chromatic 15y ago
    I know Perl 5 well enough but will my successors also? That sounds like a hiring and training question.
    - bitcracker 15y ago
      > That sounds like a hiring and training question. Yes, Fortran, APL and Ada had the same questions.
      - chromatic 15y ago
        If only they had a CPAN growth rate to measure.
        greenName 15y ago
        "compilable perl" has been "on the horizon" for 15 years. I suggest you not measure it by that rate.
        chromatic 15y ago
        I don't know what "compilable Perl" has to do with the CPAN. "Compilation" suggests some sort of execution and distribution strategy, while the CPAN is an archive of resuable code and the surrounding ecosystem of dependency management, documentation, bug tracking, history, annotation, and comprehensive testing around it. I'm suggesting that if you measure the amount of code submitted to the CPAN, the number of authors, the frequency of updates, and the freshness of versions, you'll see that Perl 5 is far from stagnant.
        bitcracker 15y ago
        > you'll see that Perl 5 is far from stagnant. You mean CPAN is far from stagnant. CPAN is nice, yes, but I don't think CPAN alone is enough to invite newcomers to Perl. Perl 5 itself is stagnant. New features are not developed in Perl 5 but Perl 6. Perl 6 ist still not mature after several years of development. I tried it on Parrot yesterday, it ran way slower than Perl 5. Who ever would use it when even the Perl advocates don't recommend it? Perl 6 looked so promising. I am disappointed.
        15y ago