4 ms·

Maybe his book is still relevant today because Perl didn't evolve much during these past years ? (no troll, I just read a few articles about Perl, I have no "in

Maybe his book is still relevant today because Perl didn't evolve much during these past years ? (no troll, I just read a few articles about Perl, I have no "insider" knowledge about the language situation except they're all waiting for Perl 6). Imagine a book about web development from 10 years ago, I guess nothing would be usable without a lot of modifications and side researches.

marijn 12y ago
Eloquent JavaScript's 1st edition is 7 years old today, and still selling well. It is showing its age, and I am bringing out a 2nd edition, but if you stick to the fundamentals and don't run with temporary hypes too much, it is possible to write a relatively longevous book even on web development.
perlgeek 12y ago
Not really; the techniques are still relevant in Perl 6 (which you can try out today, no need for waiting), even though the syntax changed slightly. In fact they are pretty much relevant in all dynamic programming languages that have a convenient closure mechanism/syntax. There's also a "Higher Order Javascript" page somewhere, which translates the Perl examples to javascript. (EDIT: link: http://interglacial.com/hoj/hoj.html http://interglacial.com/hoj/hoj.html)
dagw 12y ago
"Web development" isn't a programming language. I'd imagine most decent books on reasonably mature languages from 10 years ago would be pretty usable today.
eCa 12y ago
Perl 5 has evolved quite nicely lately, and I don't wait for Perl 6 (the biggest problem with Perl 6 is that "6" is bigger than "5"). While I haven't read this book (only skimmed parts), this book is not affected by the language evolution. Of course, it doesn't follow 'modern Perl' practices, but mostly it wouldn't need to. It is more concerned about concepts that can be applied regardless of language.
mcguire 12y ago
HOP is a brilliantly-written exposition of a set of techniques that are actually pretty ancient, but only commonly known in parts of the functional programming and specifically Lisp community. It's real connection with Perl is slim. The techniques are easily applicable to Ruby, Python, modern Perl, and Javascript. Web development? Well, HTTP and the underlying technologies are roughly the same as they were 10 years ago; HTML, too. Relational databases haven't changed much. The underpinnings are probably going to be as recognizable 10 years from now. But web development as a whole is incredibly fashion driven. What will be popular in the future? I'm not even going to try to guess.
hvs 12y ago
A few points: * The concepts of functional programming that he discusses in the book are over 30 years old but still very relevant today. * The syntax of languages don't change that dramatically at the core. Libraries, yes, but this book is about concepts using the core language not specific libraries. * Nobody is "waiting for Perl 6". The Perl 5 community has generally moved on (or left). We are still writing Perl 5 everyday and don't think about Perl 6.

marijn 12y ago

Eloquent JavaScript's 1st edition is 7 years old today, and still selling well. It is showing its age, and I am bringing out a 2nd edition, but if you stick to the fundamentals and don't run with temporary hypes too much, it is possible to write a relatively longevous book even on web development.

perlgeek 12y ago

Not really; the techniques are still relevant in Perl 6 (which you can try out today, no need for waiting), even though the syntax changed slightly. In fact they are pretty much relevant in all dynamic programming languages that have a convenient closure mechanism/syntax. There's also a "Higher Order Javascript" page somewhere, which translates the Perl examples to javascript. (EDIT: link: http://interglacial.com/hoj/hoj.html http://interglacial.com/hoj/hoj.html)

dagw 12y ago

"Web development" isn't a programming language. I'd imagine most decent books on reasonably mature languages from 10 years ago would be pretty usable today.

eCa 12y ago

Perl 5 has evolved quite nicely lately, and I don't wait for Perl 6 (the biggest problem with Perl 6 is that "6" is bigger than "5"). While I haven't read this book (only skimmed parts), this book is not affected by the language evolution. Of course, it doesn't follow 'modern Perl' practices, but mostly it wouldn't need to. It is more concerned about concepts that can be applied regardless of language.

mcguire 12y ago

HOP is a brilliantly-written exposition of a set of techniques that are actually pretty ancient, but only commonly known in parts of the functional programming and specifically Lisp community. It's real connection with Perl is slim. The techniques are easily applicable to Ruby, Python, modern Perl, and Javascript. Web development? Well, HTTP and the underlying technologies are roughly the same as they were 10 years ago; HTML, too. Relational databases haven't changed much. The underpinnings are probably going to be as recognizable 10 years from now. But web development as a whole is incredibly fashion driven. What will be popular in the future? I'm not even going to try to guess.

hvs 12y ago

A few points: * The concepts of functional programming that he discusses in the book are over 30 years old but still very relevant today. * The syntax of languages don't change that dramatically at the core. Libraries, yes, but this book is about concepts using the core language not specific libraries. * Nobody is "waiting for Perl 6". The Perl 5 community has generally moved on (or left). We are still writing Perl 5 everyday and don't think about Perl 6.