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This doesn't make much sense. If anything, I'd argue that the Perl community is taking a page out of Python's book with their recent emphasis on readable code,
by tomku 15y ago
This doesn't make much sense. If anything, I'd argue that the Perl community is taking a page out of Python's book with their recent emphasis on readable code, best practices and things like "use strict" over the freewheeling hackery that formed Perl's reputation. I'm not sure what I'd recommend to the author if they prefer a less prescriptive community, but it certainly wouldn't be either Python or Ruby. Maybe something from the Lisp family, like Racket?
On a side note, the very things that the author complains about are the same things that have been motivating me to learn Perl recently. My previous experience with it had been exposure to badly-written sysadmin scripts and clever one-liners. However, the stuff I've seen recently (particularly chromatic's "Modern Perl" book [1] and the Enlightened Perl Organisation [2]) has shown me that it's possible to write Perl that's downright elegant, without resorting to the ugly mess that many people think of when they hear "Perl script".
[1] http://www.onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html http://www.onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html
[2] http://www.enlightenedperl.org/ http://www.enlightenedperl.org/
- wazoox 15y agoIf you're interested in serious completely mind-bending hacking, don't forget to check eyepopslikeamosquito [1] posts on perlmonks.org. The golfing adventures (in Perl, Python and Ruby) really read like fantasy tales from another planet of superior brains :) [1]: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=176576 http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=176576
- mey 15y agoAs an outsider to the perl community, looking in. I see an identity crisis. Is perl a shell scripting language, a web framework to scale, a OO Monolith EE system? Talk to different people you will hear yes. The fact that use strict exists is a flaw in and of itself. It divides a community on the "correct" way to use the language. As an outsider, I don't have a niche that perl fits, that something else with a clearer purpose doesn't already cover. I appreciate it for it's contributions to language development, but that's about it.
- autarch 15y agoIs this any different than Ruby or Python (or any other scripting(ish) language)? Ruby and Python are both good for sysadmin scripting, web frameworks, and big apps. So is Perl. The fact that use strict exists is hardly a flaw. It's a useful tool, and one that many of us use most of the time. The fact that is doesn't exist for Ruby or Python seems like the flaw. But if Python did add it, I wouldn't be surprised to see it default to off for a long time because of backwards compatibility, just like Perl.