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> I can run basically any Perl code back to Perl 4 (March 1991) on Perl 5.40.2 which is current. Yes, but can you _read_ it? I'm only half joking. Perl has so
by dotancohen 1y ago
> I can run basically any Perl code back to Perl 4 (March 1991) on Perl 5.40.2 which is current.
Yes, but can you _read_ it?
I'm only half joking. Perl has so many ways to do things, many of them obscure but preferable for specific cases. It's often a write-only language if you can't get ahold of the dev who wrote whatever script you're trying to debug.
I wonder if modern LLMs could actually help with that.
- johnisgood 1y ago> I wonder if modern LLMs could actually help with that. From experience, they can.
- fuzztester 1y ago>Yes, but can you _read_ it? Java was marketed (at least in its early days) as a WORA language - WRITE ONCE RUN ANYWHERE. Perl was unmarketed as a WORM language - WRITE ONCE READ MANY (TIMES). ;) jk, i actually like perl somewhat. but I think Larry and team went somewhat overboard with that human-style linguistics stuff that they applied to perl.
- cestith 1y agoI can. Some of it by some developers I can read far more easily than others. Can you read arbitrary code written by developers from around the world in PL/1, or Ada, Forth, APL, or even C++? Big languages have lots of syntax choices, yes. It doesn’t need to be abused. Even C has an obfuscated code contest that’s been going on for decades.