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"As has been alluded to in another comment: Which other languages that compare to perl have you actually looked at?" I am very familiar with all of the languag

"As has been alluded to in another comment: Which other languages that compare to perl have you actually looked at?" I am very familiar with all of the languages that you mention. They are all great languages in their own right. My comment however was about Perl's ability to easily evolve the core language via contributions from its community, as opposed to other languages that require a lenghty process performed by the core maintainers of the language. This allows Perl to evolve at a much faster pace than other languages. A lot of your points do not seem relevant in that context. "Python has rich meta-programming." Who cares? So do most modern languages. "Ruby has (almost) single-handedly super-hyped and re-invented the idea of domain specific languages (DSLs)." The Perl community has been writing DSL's since before most people had heard of Ruby. Real DSL's. Not just invoking functions without parens and labeling it a DSL, as is often done in the Ruby community. Ruby in no way invented or re-invented anything having to do with DSL's. "Lisp is of course all about this (as is Forth)." Agreed. Lisp macros are very powerful. Lisp is a great example of a language that can do this. "I'm very much on the burnt-by-crazy-old-nasty-perl-legacy-crap side of the fence -- but I can't deny that I see some of the reasons why people would like to use perl -- it's just not for me." This is a common complaint. People have had to deal with Perl code that they do not understand. It may have been poorly written, or it may have been perfectly written Perl code. If you do not take the time to learn Perl, you would not know the difference. The most common reaction is to blame the language. "Still -- it's a bit strange to see the claim that perl is somehow much more flexible than other comparable languages." It may be strange to you because you are not very familiar with Perl.

sciurus 14y ago
"People have had to deal with Perl code that they do not understand. It may have been poorly written, or it may have been perfectly written Perl code. If you do not take the time to learn Perl, you would not know the difference." The problem is that Perl's TIMTOWDI culture and the inconsistent evolution of the core language make learning "enough" Perl harder than learning e.g. "enough" Python.
- chromatic 14y ago
  Python's "one obvious way" to do things changes over time too!
- ironcamel 14y ago
  Yes, I definitely agree that Perl is harder to learn than Python. My point was that people may not have the time or interest to learn Perl, and so when they see Perl code that they do not understand, they blame it on the language instead of their own lack of knowledge. Perl has a very rich and powerful and expressive grammar. It takes a good bit of effort to learn all of it. Python has opted for a grammer that is much more simple. That definitely has its benefits. For me personally, I feel constrained when writing Python code due to its lack of expressiveness.
e12e 14y ago
I didn't say I had to deal with perl code I didn't understand, just nasty perl code. Of course the coder in question is the problem, not the language as such -- I've just seen more obscure hacked together perl code than eg: python. I'm perfectly aware this is a subjective opinion: I don't like perl very much. I never claimed everyone else should dislike perl -- in fact I stated the opposite -- I see why it appeals to some people. > My comment however was about Perl's ability to easily evolve the core language via contributions from its community, as opposed to other languages that require a lenghty process performed by the core maintainers of the language. > "Python has rich meta-programming." >> Who cares? So do most modern languages. Well, your claim is that perl has strong meta programming, and that perl programmers use it -- implying that eg: python programmers choose not to, and rather sit on their hands waiting for Guido to bless their new data structure or syntactic sugar for improving arrays? See eg: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0218/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0218/ I suppose this your "lengthy process" ? But the set module was available before it became part of the core language, so if you were the programmer that needed a new datatype nothing stopped you from implementing it and uploading it to the package index? (Although I don't remember quite how well the package index worked back in 2000 -- CPAN certainly has a long and solid history behind it :-) For another example (again python): http://kashif.razzaqui.com/30414548 http://kashif.razzaqui.com/30414548 "Javascript's Prototype Inheritance in Python" As for ruby, note I said "super-hyped". Maybe I should've said "re-introduced", or "introduced to a new generation of programmers", rather than "re-invented". > It may be strange to you because you are not very familiar with Perl. Perhaps. I would be very much interested in some examples of the DSLs you speak of. I guess perls regex-handling would lend itself to be used as a poor man's Standard MetaLanguage?
- e12e 14y ago
  Well, ok -- I guess (after a bit more googling) I see what you mean: http://www.catalyzed.org/2009/05/dawn-of-a-new-age-in-perl-how-develdeclare-extends-perls-syntax.html http://www.catalyzed.org/2009/05/dawn-of-a-new-age-in-perl-h... Now, while power obviously is power -- I don't see many immediate uses for that, that can't be done better within in python via magic methods etc. But in case others are interested, here's a couple of links I also came across: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/214881/can-you-add-new-statements-to-pythons-syntax http://stackoverflow.com/questions/214881/can-you-add-new-st... http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/06/30/python-internals-adding-a-new-statement-to-python/ http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/06/30/python-internals-add... (Most definitely in the "don't do that"-category from a python point of view :) If this (writing a new language) is really what you want, you would probably be better off playing with pypy and its restricted python, though: https://bitbucket.org/brownan/pypy-tutorial/src/8cfb3cd72515/tutorial.rst https://bitbucket.org/brownan/pypy-tutorial/src/8cfb3cd72515... (Tutorial for writing your own interpreter with rpython) https://bitbucket.org/cfbolz/pyrolog/src/aa127d31df0c/prolog/doc.txt https://bitbucket.org/cfbolz/pyrolog/src/aa127d31df0c/prolog... Working implementation of Prolog, built with pypy/rpython

sciurus 14y ago

"People have had to deal with Perl code that they do not understand. It may have been poorly written, or it may have been perfectly written Perl code. If you do not take the time to learn Perl, you would not know the difference." The problem is that Perl's TIMTOWDI culture and the inconsistent evolution of the core language make learning "enough" Perl harder than learning e.g. "enough" Python.

chromatic 14y ago
Python's "one obvious way" to do things changes over time too!
ironcamel 14y ago
Yes, I definitely agree that Perl is harder to learn than Python. My point was that people may not have the time or interest to learn Perl, and so when they see Perl code that they do not understand, they blame it on the language instead of their own lack of knowledge. Perl has a very rich and powerful and expressive grammar. It takes a good bit of effort to learn all of it. Python has opted for a grammer that is much more simple. That definitely has its benefits. For me personally, I feel constrained when writing Python code due to its lack of expressiveness.

e12e 14y ago

I didn't say I had to deal with perl code I didn't understand, just nasty perl code. Of course the coder in question is the problem, not the language as such -- I've just seen more obscure hacked together perl code than eg: python. I'm perfectly aware this is a subjective opinion: I don't like perl very much. I never claimed everyone else should dislike perl -- in fact I stated the opposite -- I see why it appeals to some people. > My comment however was about Perl's ability to easily evolve the core language via contributions from its community, as opposed to other languages that require a lenghty process performed by the core maintainers of the language. > "Python has rich meta-programming." >> Who cares? So do most modern languages. Well, your claim is that perl has strong meta programming, and that perl programmers use it -- implying that eg: python programmers choose not to, and rather sit on their hands waiting for Guido to bless their new data structure or syntactic sugar for improving arrays? See eg: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0218/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0218/ I suppose this your "lengthy process" ? But the set module was available before it became part of the core language, so if you were the programmer that needed a new datatype nothing stopped you from implementing it and uploading it to the package index? (Although I don't remember quite how well the package index worked back in 2000 -- CPAN certainly has a long and solid history behind it :-) For another example (again python): http://kashif.razzaqui.com/30414548 http://kashif.razzaqui.com/30414548 "Javascript's Prototype Inheritance in Python" As for ruby, note I said "super-hyped". Maybe I should've said "re-introduced", or "introduced to a new generation of programmers", rather than "re-invented". > It may be strange to you because you are not very familiar with Perl. Perhaps. I would be very much interested in some examples of the DSLs you speak of. I guess perls regex-handling would lend itself to be used as a poor man's Standard MetaLanguage?

e12e 14y ago
Well, ok -- I guess (after a bit more googling) I see what you mean: http://www.catalyzed.org/2009/05/dawn-of-a-new-age-in-perl-how-develdeclare-extends-perls-syntax.html http://www.catalyzed.org/2009/05/dawn-of-a-new-age-in-perl-h... Now, while power obviously is power -- I don't see many immediate uses for that, that can't be done better within in python via magic methods etc. But in case others are interested, here's a couple of links I also came across: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/214881/can-you-add-new-statements-to-pythons-syntax http://stackoverflow.com/questions/214881/can-you-add-new-st... http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/06/30/python-internals-adding-a-new-statement-to-python/ http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/06/30/python-internals-add... (Most definitely in the "don't do that"-category from a python point of view :) If this (writing a new language) is really what you want, you would probably be better off playing with pypy and its restricted python, though: https://bitbucket.org/brownan/pypy-tutorial/src/8cfb3cd72515/tutorial.rst https://bitbucket.org/brownan/pypy-tutorial/src/8cfb3cd72515... (Tutorial for writing your own interpreter with rpython) https://bitbucket.org/cfbolz/pyrolog/src/aa127d31df0c/prolog/doc.txt https://bitbucket.org/cfbolz/pyrolog/src/aa127d31df0c/prolog... Working implementation of Prolog, built with pypy/rpython