4 ms·

Perl is really really bad. Bash is also really really bad. Perl is unreadable and bash is massively insecure unless you chant the magic incantations which even

by nox101 2y ago

Perl is really really bad. Bash is also really really bad. Perl is unreadable and bash is massively insecure unless you chant the magic incantations which even the pros forget. At most you should learn Perl to learn now not to design a language and then you should learn bash to learn why such a large percentage of systems are vulnerable to various injections. Even Apple had a bash error where they had an OS upgrade that deleted your hard drive if you had a space in the volume name which I'm making the assumption was a bash script because spaces in filename don't generally matter in any sane language.

BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
That's true, but shellcheck exists, at least.
kamaal 2y ago
Hating Perl is some what like hating vim, or emacs, or lisp macros. You can live without it. But you will do a lot of pointless work over long periods of time. There are a lots of people who are ok with that. Me personally, I attempt to live a life where I can do O(1) or O(as little steps it takes) in anything I touch. I stubbornly refuse to do work that can be done using a computer.
- nox101 2y ago
  I wrote an entire blogging system in Perl. knowing perl doesn't make me want to use it. Rather it makes me want to run away screaming. it doesn't compare to vim, emacs, or lisp. Perl is objectively bad
  - oguz-ismail 2y ago
    >Perl is objectively bad Nah, I think it's fine.
    - tempfile 2y ago
      perhaps it's objectively bad, but subjectively good?
  - scrapheap 2y ago
    Like most programming languages Perl is fine, but there are things in it that could be better. Yes you can make a mess in it, but you can do that in any language. P.S. Why did you write a blogging system in a language you obviously hate? :D
    - nox101 2y ago
      I didn't know better when I started (~97) and enjoyed perl for ~5 yrs before I learned better. Perl is designed to make obfuscated code. Sure, you can try to write non-obfuscated perl but that's fighting the language. Clearly, all its magic variables were meant to be used, else they wouldn't exist. It's also got it's crazy hacked variables with "local" etc.... Sure, you can get things done in any language. Brainfuck FTW? But some languages are just poorly designed. They're not designed to make maintainable readable code and avoid bugs, they're designed so its easy to do the wrong things, make mistakes, make things hard to read, and to have errors etc. Both Perl and Bash have these traits. No language is perfect but many other languages have far less of these issues.
      - scrapheap 2y ago
        I have a better understanding on where you're coming from now, with your main experience of Perl being later version 4 and early version 5 of the language - things have significantly improved since then and it's a lot easier to write Perl code that's both easy to read and maintain these days. You might want to have a look through the Modern Perl book (http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/index.html http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/index.html) to get an idea of the direction the language has moved. And for the more junior programmers out there: Just because a language gives you a feature doesn't mean you have to use it - part of being a good programmer is understanding when it makes sense to use a language's feature and when it doesn't. After all, C let's us directly inline machine code as an array of bytes, but that doesn't mean that we should be using that feature every time we write C code :)
  - kazinator 2y ago
    I'm certainly no Perl fan, but, Vimscript, oh boy ...
Lammy 2y ago
> which I'm making the assumption was a bash script It was iTunes 2 installer pkg for Mac OS X 10.1, but that was indeed the cause: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/v29rw7z3#r13436 https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/v29rw7z3#r13436
prmoustache 2y ago
> Perl is unreadable Perl is only unreadable if you decide to write unreadable code or if you can't do any better. It is just a revelator of who the actual programmer is.
bmacho 2y ago
> Perl is unreadable What if you * only write readable Perl * don't interact with unreadable Perl then you can enjoy the benefits of the Perl ecosystem, even tho the language has a lot of shorthands

by nox101 2y ago

BoingBoomTschak 2y ago

That's true, but shellcheck exists, at least.

kamaal 2y ago

Hating Perl is some what like hating vim, or emacs, or lisp macros. You can live without it. But you will do a lot of pointless work over long periods of time. There are a lots of people who are ok with that. Me personally, I attempt to live a life where I can do O(1) or O(as little steps it takes) in anything I touch. I stubbornly refuse to do work that can be done using a computer.

nox101 2y ago
I wrote an entire blogging system in Perl. knowing perl doesn't make me want to use it. Rather it makes me want to run away screaming. it doesn't compare to vim, emacs, or lisp. Perl is objectively bad
- oguz-ismail 2y ago
  >Perl is objectively bad Nah, I think it's fine.
  - tempfile 2y ago
    perhaps it's objectively bad, but subjectively good?
- scrapheap 2y ago
  Like most programming languages Perl is fine, but there are things in it that could be better. Yes you can make a mess in it, but you can do that in any language. P.S. Why did you write a blogging system in a language you obviously hate? :D
  - nox101 2y ago
    I didn't know better when I started (~97) and enjoyed perl for ~5 yrs before I learned better. Perl is designed to make obfuscated code. Sure, you can try to write non-obfuscated perl but that's fighting the language. Clearly, all its magic variables were meant to be used, else they wouldn't exist. It's also got it's crazy hacked variables with "local" etc.... Sure, you can get things done in any language. Brainfuck FTW? But some languages are just poorly designed. They're not designed to make maintainable readable code and avoid bugs, they're designed so its easy to do the wrong things, make mistakes, make things hard to read, and to have errors etc. Both Perl and Bash have these traits. No language is perfect but many other languages have far less of these issues.
    - scrapheap 2y ago
      I have a better understanding on where you're coming from now, with your main experience of Perl being later version 4 and early version 5 of the language - things have significantly improved since then and it's a lot easier to write Perl code that's both easy to read and maintain these days. You might want to have a look through the Modern Perl book (http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/index.html http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/index.html) to get an idea of the direction the language has moved. And for the more junior programmers out there: Just because a language gives you a feature doesn't mean you have to use it - part of being a good programmer is understanding when it makes sense to use a language's feature and when it doesn't. After all, C let's us directly inline machine code as an array of bytes, but that doesn't mean that we should be using that feature every time we write C code :)
- kazinator 2y ago
  I'm certainly no Perl fan, but, Vimscript, oh boy ...

Lammy 2y ago

> which I'm making the assumption was a bash script It was iTunes 2 installer pkg for Mac OS X 10.1, but that was indeed the cause: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/v29rw7z3#r13436 https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/v29rw7z3#r13436

prmoustache 2y ago

> Perl is unreadable Perl is only unreadable if you decide to write unreadable code or if you can't do any better. It is just a revelator of who the actual programmer is.

bmacho 2y ago

> Perl is unreadable What if you * only write readable Perl * don't interact with unreadable Perl then you can enjoy the benefits of the Perl ecosystem, even tho the language has a lot of shorthands