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To add two different thoughts: * Perl is widely used and has inspired many other languages. These are not small accomplishments. * How many major revision bum
by dj-wonk 13y ago
To add two different thoughts:
* Perl is widely used and has inspired many other languages. These are not small accomplishments.
* How many major revision bumps can a language undergo before it loses its identity? How many breaking changes are allowed before it becomes something else? Perhaps the name is about something more than the language as crystallized at any one point in time? But how do you convey that to the community as the language changes?
- Mithaldu 13y agoTo the last point: I'm fairly sure that the identity of a language is defined by its teaching materials. Up until 2012 all Perl teaching materials were largely based on text written in the early 90s. And as well, any newbie program tended to look like it was almost Perl 4. This was in spite of there being a concensus and strong effort to push among the active Perl community that modern Perl was the way forward. Then two things happened: The books Modern Perl by chromatic and Beginning Perl by Ovid were written. I used these two books to teach newbies and their code is nothing like the code of newbies of old. If these two books reach enough penetration, they will change the identity of Perl.
- VLM 13y ago"Modern Perl by chromatic" I have a copy on my desk and this cannot be emphasized enough that one inward facing book on what boils down to style and good taste, has already had more impact on the language than the last two decades of outward facing comparisons. Insert forest and trees analogies in that we've got way too many presentations over the decades about how one individual tree needs trimming or fertilizing or bonsai treatment as compared to how our neighbors orchard does the same, but not enough real forestry management presentations.