3 ms·

Based on what he posted, either he's doing an extremely superficial comparison or he's done a proper one and realised there is actually not a lot in it when tal

Based on what he posted, either he's doing an extremely superficial comparison or he's done a proper one and realised there is actually not a lot in it when talking about modern languages. Fair enough, he wants to continue to use Perl because it's familiar and there aren't really massive advantages to using the other languages, that's a fair point, but state that as opposed to having a tone that suggests Perl is a better language than the others, or at least back that up with something quantifiable. On the other hand, Perl (when comparing php, python, ruby) would be last on my list because it requires the most effort to learn and get familiar with the syntax and I don't think the extra work required to learn Perl is worth the effort, because again, I think you'll actually be alright with the modern versions of all the languages.

chipotle_coyote 13y ago
There does seem to be a certain amount of truth to the "oh, you kids, we were doing that in Perl ten years ago" attitude I occasionally run into. (Sort of like Lispers, except they invented whatever cool feature you think is new back in 1958.) But it's hard to justify switching from something else to Perl, and indeed I think your rephrasing -- "it's familiar and there aren't really massive advantages to using the other languages" -- about sums this up. (Largely why I've been using PHP for a current project, despite agreeing with a lot of the criticisms people make of it.) I'm not sure I can see explicitly choosing to learn "modern" Perl to start a new project in, though. Personally I prefer Python over Ruby, unlike the author here, but I prefer both of them to Perl and its extremely... eclectic syntax. I once failed a job interview because I joked that Perl was a read-only language, but it really frequently is.
- RussianCow 13y ago
  You mean write-only?
dmoney 13y ago
It was an interview on a Perl blog, so the target audience is people already enthusiastic about Perl. Here's why I think learning Perl is worth it: a lot of programmers write stuff in it. It won't make you know other languages any less.

chipotle_coyote 13y ago

There does seem to be a certain amount of truth to the "oh, you kids, we were doing that in Perl ten years ago" attitude I occasionally run into. (Sort of like Lispers, except they invented whatever cool feature you think is new back in 1958.) But it's hard to justify switching from something else to Perl, and indeed I think your rephrasing -- "it's familiar and there aren't really massive advantages to using the other languages" -- about sums this up. (Largely why I've been using PHP for a current project, despite agreeing with a lot of the criticisms people make of it.) I'm not sure I can see explicitly choosing to learn "modern" Perl to start a new project in, though. Personally I prefer Python over Ruby, unlike the author here, but I prefer both of them to Perl and its extremely... eclectic syntax. I once failed a job interview because I joked that Perl was a read-only language, but it really frequently is.

RussianCow 13y ago
You mean write-only?

dmoney 13y ago

It was an interview on a Perl blog, so the target audience is people already enthusiastic about Perl. Here's why I think learning Perl is worth it: a lot of programmers write stuff in it. It won't make you know other languages any less.