Larry Wall on Perl 6 265
Nate writes "Linux Format magazine has an interview with Larry Wall, the eccentric linguist and coder behind Perl. Larry discusses some of the new Perl 6 features ready to rock the world, and if you're not planning to move from Perl 5.8, he has a few musings on that too."
Perl is a trainwreck - retire it (Score:4, Funny)
not to continue using Perl for serious programming projects. As I will
explain, I feel that Perl needs to be retired, much the same way that
Fortran, Cobol and C have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so bold
as to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.
To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently asked
to develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune
500 company. While I've never coded in Perl before I have coded in VB for
fifteen years, and in Java for over ten, I was stunned to see how
poorly Perl fared compared to these two, more low-level languages.
Perl's biggest difficulty, as we all know, is the fact that it is by far
one of the slowest languages in existance, especially when compared to
more modern languages such as Java and C#. Although the reasons for
this are varied, the main reasons seems to be the way Perl requires a
programmer to laboriously work with chunks of memory.
Requiring a programmer to manipulate blocks of memory is a tedious way
to program. This was satisfactory back in the early days of coding,
but then again, so were punchcards. By using what are called
"pointers" a Perl programmer is basically requiring the computer to do
three sets of work rather than one. The first time requires the
computer to duplicate whatever is stored in the memory space "pointed
to" by the pointer. The second time requires it to perform the needed
operation on this space. Finally the computer must delete the
duplicate set and set the values of the original accordingly.
Clearly this is a horrendous use of resources and the chief reason why
Perl is so slow. When one looks at a more modern (and a more serious)
programming language like Java, C# or - even better - Visual Basic
that lacks such archaic coding styles, one will also note a serious
speed increase over Perl.
So what does this mean for the programming community? I think clearly
that Perl needs to be abandonded. There are two candidates that would be
a suitable replacement for it. Those are Java and Visual Basic.
Having programmed in both for many years, I believe that VB has the
edge. Not only is it slightly faster than Java its also much easier to
code in. I found Perl to be confusing, frightening and intimidating with
its non-GUI-based coding style. Furthermore, I like to see the source
code of the projects I work with. Java's source seems to be under the
monopolistic thumb of Sun much the way that GCC is obscured from us by
the marketing people at the FSF. Microsoft's "shared source" under
which Visual Basic is released definately seems to be the most fair
and reasonable of all the licenses in existance, with none of the
harsh restrictions of the BSD license. It also lacks the GPLs
requirement that anything coded with its tools becomes property of the
FSF.
I hope to see a switch from Perl to VB very soon. I've already spoken
with various luminaries in the Perl coding world and most are eager to
begin to transition. Having just gotten off the phone with Mr. Alan
Cox, I can say that he is quite thrilled with the speed increases that
will occur when the Linux kernel is completely rewritten in Visual
Basic. Richard Stallman plans to support this, and hopes that the
great Swede himself, Linux Torvaldis, won't object to renaming Linux
to VB/Linux. Although not a Perl coder himself, I'm told that Slashdot's
very own Admiral Taco will support this on his web site. Finally,
Dennis Ritchie is excited about the switch!
Thank you for your time. Happy coding.
Re:Perl is a trainwreck - retire it (Score:3, Insightful)
For relatively simple cgi tasks, Perl is still, by far, my favorite:
Re:Perl is a trainwreck - retire it (Score:2)
How about the trick of noticing a joke?
Did you actually read the whole thing? If so, can you honestly believe in VB/Linux?
No, this is Geek Satire at its finest.
Then use perl persistently... (Score:3, Informative)
Perl is compiled every time you run a Perl program. It causes an annoying slowdown in my programs.
It doesn't have to be... you should look into SpeedyCGI/PersistentPerl [daemoninc.com] or even PPerl [cpan.org]. I use the former for various web cgi's that are hit constantly (including one framework where all hits are rewritten to execute a single index.pl script) as well as for various scripts that need to execute very quickly as part of a qmail/vpopmail shell chain.
As long as it's already use strict compliant, neither of these option
Re:Perl is a trainwreck - retire it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Perl is a trainwreck - retire it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Perl is a trainwreck - retire it (Score:2)
The Perl 6 VM is Parrot (Score:5, Informative)
The virtual machine that will run Perl 6 [perl.org] is Parrot [parrotcode.org], an innovative register-based JITed VM optimized for dynamic languages.
It can also run a subset of Python (compiled with Pirate [tangentcode.com]), Ruby, Tcl, brainf*ck, Ook!, Common LISP, BASIC, Lua, m4 and a few others, all of which are more or less incomplete.
More details on the Parrot site [parrotcode.org] and the Wikipedia page on the Parrot VM. [wikipedia.org]
If you like that sort of things, you can help! [parrotcode.org]
Parrot more interesting than Perl 6 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Parrot more interesting than Perl 6 (Score:2)
Does it? I'd like a reference on that. That would be interesting, since
Re:Parrot more interesting than Perl 6 (Score:4, Informative)
I'm all for another multi-language VM, especially if it's built from the ground up for dynamic typing, but you're joking about the languages, right?
I count 33 Parrot Languages [parrotcode.org] (including duplicates) but only 15 that have ANY tests [parrotcode.org] (even ones that fail).
Of all the lists [66.102.7.104] that I checked [startvbdotnet.com], the only one [dotnetlanguages.net] that short [gotdotnet.com] was the one for the Mono Project [mono-project.com] (and they list 13)...
I mean, it's certainly fair to claim that Parrot is newer, if by newer you mean "still not done" (at the current rate, we might see .NET 3 before Parrot 1.0), or "released a beta most recently" (0.4 came out JUST after .NET 2 went gold). But to say it has more languages is just ignorant.
Re:Parrot more interesting than Perl 6 (Score:2)
All good points. Unfortunately I don't think supporting a bunch of languages will cut it (even if all the languages are well supported and not just shoddy one-shot incomplete implementations). I think the main thing that sets .net apart is not so much language support, but the rich software library which is conveniently accessable from *any* of those languages.
First and foremost you need a *good* GUI package,
Re:Parrot more interesting than Perl 6 (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that the goal of Parrot is to allow exactly that, right? So a Python programmer could, conceivable, leverage modules from C6PAN, or vice versa. But, like
Re:Parrot more interesting than Perl 6 (Score:2)
how will extensions work? (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion, Parrot needs to get this right to be useful.
Re:how will extensions work? (Score:3, Informative)
An interesting question (Score:2)
I figured he was there for life, especially now that the dotcom bust seems to be un-busting again.
D
Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like that.
Re:Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:2)
I love Perl, and for
Re:Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:4, Insightful)
The freedom of the language has nothing to do with its syntactic cleanliness. I don't know what makes you say Python dictates how you express yourself. If you had said Java instead I might agree more. Python is very clean and simple, but dictates very little at a higher level.
Re:Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:2)
Ok, maybe it's your assertion:
> The freedom of the language has nothing to do with its syntactic cleanliness.
That's off. On the contrary, having a flexible grammar allows you to do, well, flexible things. I for instance was able to throw together my own data modelling syntax using Perl's function prototypes
Re:Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:3, Interesting)
I knew somebody would start bitching about the indentation. The indentation is just Python's syntax for denoting block structure. It doesn't remove any power from the programmer, it is just a different syntax. Does Perl (5, anyway) grant the freedom to denote blocks with indents instead of curly braces? No? S
Re:Why I like Larry Wall. (Score:4, Interesting)
And on the same vein, "There is more than one way to do it".
I love Perl.
Is it pretty? Not really.
Does it do OO? Pretty much, but its not pretty.
Can it go from a one liner to a pretty large app? Yup.
Is it portable and extensible. Hell yeah.
Is it fast? Fast enough. -- I remember on older machines you would run a perl script, and you could "feel" it compile itself by a slight lag before input or output, but I only notice a lag on machines that have not used that perl app yet (not cached) and uses tons of modules or whatever that need to be found on the disk. Once the program has been run, it starts as fast as any other. The runtime speed is anywhere between much slower to 4x slower than C or C++, but being that it usually takes 10x time to write C or C++ that Perl can do better, I'll go by the maxim of optimize later if needed.
I've not looked into Perl 6. 5 is fine with me. 6 embeds 5, so there is supposed to be no or very little backwards compatibility issues. 4 was not that good compared to 5, and the compatibility was not as good. Yuck, those people who still do &subroutine(); Thankfully, I don't see module'subroutine() syntax any more if it is still even supported (I think I remember the syntax correctly).
Perl is very powerful. Not the right tool for every job, but many of them. For most everything you want to do, there is a module that can be easily and portably installed (or 2 or 3) that can reduce the "reinventing the wheel" issue. The CPAN module and module dependancy can not be as fun as apt-get install CGI.pm, but perl is excellent and I hope it does not become an "old school" language. Its simply too easy to start to use, and go from there.
Hard Enough to Understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hard Enough to Understand (Score:2)
Re:Hard Enough to Understand (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hard Enough to Understand (Score:2)
Re:Hard Enough to Understand (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, it could also cause some of the issues LISP macros can cause. Powerful language features aren't inherently bad things, but powerful language features in the hands of unskilled users are dangerous things, so it depends a lot on who you're trying to help.
Re:Hard Enough to Understand (Score:2)
Re:Hard Enough to Understand (Score:2)
I find Perl to be great for exploring problem spaces and prototyping. It is also an excellent tool for one-shots, and for persons who have to learn programming while focusing on something else (for instance, grad students and research assistants). But I think there are much better languages for large projects and long term maintenance.
I don't think this is a limitation of Perl. It arises because any large or long term project is going to involve some programmers who have only a year of experience-- and wh
Terrorists caused book sales to plunge (Score:5, Funny)
I remember on 9/11 thinking: That's it, I will never buy any more books! The terrorists have won.
Re:Terrorists caused book sales to plunge (Score:4, Insightful)
Well actually that's apparently exactly what happened. Maybe not just to computer books, it could have been more of a global . o 0 { I'm not buying anything except bottled water, canned food and shotgun shells } but it certainly had a hugh effect on computer book sales. Part of this was happening anyway, it -seemed- when the burst of the .com bubble stifled innovation and there just wasn't anything that new that people needed a book to learn. While that was true to a point what really was going on was that people needed to learn different things and no publisher was providing it (and largely still don't today). In overly simplistic terms, the bulk market shifted from how do I use my computer to how do I accomplish "x" with my computer. It's also important to realize that the "x" changed too. Most publishers on a whole still don't get this (some do, but the industry on a whole is very reactive so change is slow). O'Reilly has been burned by this just like everyone else. While there is still a good market for well written programming books which has traditionally been O'Reilly's market (and has saved it many times since it traditionally avoided the fickleness of end user consumers) even that is changing. Right now to try to save themselves most Publishers are just attempting to do the same thing by making superficial changes in how books look and selling this facelift as the next big thing ("Head First Java" anyone?) The problem is these books still teach the same old topics which have diminishing interest. It's not the approach... Heck.. IMO "The C Programming language" by K.&R. is still the best computer book out there and much of that has to do with the simple presentation of the material without all the pretense and gimmicks of today. The problem isn't the approach, it's the topic.
But a babble off on some rant... the fact remains 9/11 hurt the book industry along with everyone else, the computer book industry took an extra hit because when people started to buy stuff again they realized that none of the computer books on the shelves dealt with the topics they wanted to learn.
O'Reilly Head First lineup (Score:2)
I've been buying, reading, using O'Reilly Books for almost 10 years now. If I need to buy 'blind', I buy O'Reilly and only have been disappointed once (their MySQL/mSQL DG sucks). I was disappointed when I saw them leaving the Animal Rule with the Head First series.
Then I looked into "Head Firs
Grammatical mutability... (Score:5, Funny)
Translation: "Perl 6 code will be the most unreadable Perl ever."
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:2)
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone feels that using the full scope of Perl results in messiness, they aren't forced by any means to use that full scope. There are many Perl coders who limit themselves to the "C subset" of Perl. But unlike certain other unnamed languages, Perl doesn't try to play the role of parent in telling you what you can and can't express so those who are more comfortable with a wider breadth of linguistic forms can take advantage of that and make code that is, in a word, elegant.
As for the syntactical ugliness (the $, @, %, etc.) that most people are referring to when they say that Perl is ugly... well, you learn to live with that pretty early on. But beneath that superficial ugliness lies a sparkling beautiful language.
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:2, Funny)
So you are telling me that once I kiss the frog it will turn into a beautiful prince? Forget it! I think you are just trying to trick me...
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:2)
but your rapture exceeds mine... Are you a linguist?
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:3, Insightful)
> many Perl coders who limit themselves to the "C subset" of Perl. But unlike certain other unnamed languages, Perl doesn't try to
> play the role of parent in telling you what you can and can't express so those who are more comfortable with a wider breadth of
> linguistic forms can take advantage of that and make code that is, in a word, elegant.
Hmmm, I find
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:2, Interesting)
I love perl and I love perl modules, but debugging code written using perl modules makes me want to tear out my already thinning hair. I was going to write a "quick and dirty" script using the libwwwperl module but ended up going with some cURL calls in a shell instead. It was easier to see what the p
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:2)
You must be talking about Lingua::Romana::Perligata [cpan.org].
From the docs:
Re:Grammatical mutability... (Score:2)
Translation: "Perl 6 code will be the most unreadable Perl ever."
This may be explained by the author who called Larry Wall an eccentric linguist .
Maybe the syntax is really just part of an elaborate hoax Larry is playing on us, like an open source reality show.
Cover Quote (Score:5, Funny)
quote - (roughly) We have 80% of Perl6 done and we are now working on the next 80%.
it's the community (Score:5, Informative)
I think one of the strength of Perl is a very active community and, dare I say it, they are nice bunch of people.
I have been to two Perl YAPC and found the people very helpful and very welcoming to people with limited programming background like myself.
The other big strength of Perl is CPAN, it's like a huge store for free. I used the CPAN shell a lot at one point and I was very pleased in the way it resolved dependencies. IN general I found the documentation for the CPAN Libraries I was using very good. Your mileage may vary. Sitll I found that creating your own Classes is a bit more work than in some other languages.
I worked on a big project that was pretty much all in Perl. How did they do it? Good old fashion project discipline. They set coding style rules (programming and indentation), Perl's Perldoc for documenting, good versioning, and object naming conventions.
Re:it's the community (Score:2)
Was one of them YAPC::NA 2005 in Toronto? I was the organizer, so if so I just wanted to say hi and thanks for coming. :-) It was the greatest pleasure being able to give people a fun conference to be at. Even if not, I know what you mean -- being a long-time YAPC conference goer was what made me want to be a conference organizer. It's a wonderful community with lots of accepting, helpful and nice people at all levels.
Cheers,
Richard
Re:it's the community (Score:2)
Just look at how many comprehensive and powerful testing modules are available, for example, and how many quality module distributions make extensive use for them.
If someone reading this thinks it's impossible to write maintainable Perl code, I ask you to look at CPAN which is simply by far
Eccentric? (Score:2)
Then I must be loony as a kookaburra.
Re:Eccentric? (Score:2)
There's photos of his family too they're all
In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
Larry Wall has announced plans to hardwire Perl 6 into his brain to make it easier for him to do updates in the shower.
Better critics (Score:3, Interesting)
At least we'd get an interesting cross-flame session!
Perl 6 for serious projects? (Score:2)
Re:Perl 6 for serious projects? (Score:3, Informative)
http://search.cpan.org/~brentdax/WWW-Kontent-0.01
Re:Perl 6 for serious projects? (Score:2)
Nobody. There isn't a fully working implementation yet.
Perl: love it and hate it... (Score:3, Interesting)
I end up using all of those languages of course, because all of them have their strengths and weaknesses. Perl is not the best performer, but much of my work is working ad hoc problems and Perl is very simple and concise for many common problems. It also is a great alternative to shell programming. I love it for those things.
However, I hate writing web-based stuff in Perl because the ease of use and clarity (basically speed of me getting somethign done tempered by the chance that I can figure out what I did later when I need to) are not as high as, say, when using PHP. It pains me to see awfully written Perl code when thigns could more clearly and easily be solved using something else -- in which case I hate it. I frequently get legacy stuff that is over engineered or fanatastically complicated because someone didn't recognize or didn't know how to use something that would have been simpler; doubly an issue since this also tends to produce more opportunities for bugs.
I could go on, but I've been doing this for some time now and have a very good feel for which language is the best tool for a specific aspect of my job and I use that (because the language used to implement a solution is NEVER a concern for those whom I'm providing solutions to).
I'm really interested in Perl6 -- the new VM (looks like
Perl 6 (Score:2)
Re:Perl 6 (Score:2)
Keep in mind that it was over 6 years between the Netscape code fork and Firefox 1.0, and they had all of the Netscape coders being paid to work on Mozilla during most of that time.
-- Chris
The most telling quote (Score:2)
Re:Full article text (Score:5, Funny)
You sir, are a cretin.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
As for attaching causality, you did that yourself... It certainly wasn't Larry or the interviewer.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about nationally, but there was a major recession in the NY area after 9/11 for a good year and a half. I was stuck workign at burger king at one point. Granted, I choose the worse time to drop out of college, it was even hard for a high school graduate with some college and a solid skillset at the time for entry level IT work to get a minimum wage service job.
The company I work for now is an ISP/developmenthouse. They are based out in eastern longisland 36.9 miles from my house in Queens according to google. There business core was out east. They had inroads and a solid plan to break into Manhattan, but they were, and still are a longisland company. Before september 11th they were looking at adding phone lines. Afterwards, the phones stopped ringing. There development work almost stopped. They had to lay off several people.
Anyway, claiming September 11th had a negative aspect on the business of computer book publishing is far from unbased.
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Whilst I agree with you generally, why did you consider the CLI to be 'a cult'? And to which CLI do you refer? Bash has its deficiencies and irregular syntax, but I don't know of anything better. Do you?
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Because he's probably a clicky-widget M$ admin who doesn't understand the power of a straightforward, low-level *programmatic* interface to everything on the system. Nothing to see, move along.
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Chop() belongs on the scrap heap of history with malloc(), as far as simple end-user-focused programs go.
...this is why it was replaced with chomp().
/me ducks
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Or prolog.
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
You're probably right, now the real question is: Java or Python.
Re:Perl? Are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Re:About Larry (Score:5, Funny)
So much has now become clear about Perl!
Don't get me wrong though, Perl is my code of choice.
Re:About Larry (Score:2, Funny)
Larry is a God but Perl makes my head hurt just thinking about it...
Obfuscation by design?
Re:About Larry (Score:3, Funny)
Now that would make a great O'Reilly title:
Application Development in Perl: Obfuscation by Design
Forgive me Larry... I must be grumpy today.
Re:About Larry (Score:2)
Re:About Larry (Score:2)
Nonsense - it takes some effort to really obfuscate perl!
Actually, your two main problems with perl are: 1) understanding the difference between sigils, and 2) learning the myriad of operators. For example:
$scalar
@array
%hash
$array[$index]
$hash{$key}
@array[0..$index]
$#array
Type "perldoc perlop" at a command prompt to get a list of operators.
== tests numeric equality, eq tests string
!= tests numeric inequality, ne tests string inequality
So if $a="3" and $b="3.0", $a==$b but $a ne $b.
=~
Re:About Larry (Score:2)
Re:About Larry (Score:2)
Other than the usual issues with the crap Algol-esque syntax and having to look up the order of parameters to a few calls it went swimmingly. For me Perl is much trickier to keep all the various punctuation straight in my head without plunking away at it for a while.
Re:About Larry (Score:4, Insightful)
But then you have this moment where something in your head *clicks* and then you understand... and after that it is beautiful and logical and makes infinite sense.
It really was better than acid...
I take it then... (Score:2)
Perl--APL for a new generation of dyslexics!
Plagiarism much? (Score:5, Informative)
But in the future, maybe you should just post a link to the article instead.
-1, Plagiarised for you.
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
Funny you should mention that. After meaning to for years, I finally got around to getting the "Learning Python" book... I made it to page 149 where it says "Python uses the indentation of statements under a header to group the statements in a nested block." I stopped reading and tossed the book on my bookshelf on a shelf full of unused & unloved technical manuals. It now sits between the Postscript redbook from 1990, and a late 80's book on Ada. It really belongs next to a Fortran book, but I don't
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:5, Insightful)
> I stopped reading and tossed the book on my bookshelf on a shelf full of unused & unloved technical manuals.
One of the best things a programmer can do is try different languages. Try lisp, sql, haskell. Play with xml and yaml. Compare J2EE to Ruby on Rails. Try a language that doesn't use ALGOL-inherited code blocks. Just like an 80s ACM article said, the single best way to evaluate a programmer is by the number of languages they're fluent in.
At the end of the day Python's indentation causes a few programs, but seems to solve more. It makes it hard to share source code via email. It rules out the use of tabs. I can live with those limits. On the flip side it helps reinforce readable code. That's a very good thing - and consistent with the fundamental philosophy of the lanuage: the code must be easy to maintain.
But if you really can't get your head around that, then try Ruby. Like Python it's a well-designed, easily maintained language with a great community and future.
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
In practice you just use a decent editor with a Python mode/plugin and hit tab. The editor indents and converts the tabs to spaces but, usefully, has smart backspacing that eats a tabs worth of spaces when closing a block (and in many ed
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
Funny you should mention that. After meaning to for years, I finally got around to getting the "Learning Python" book... I made it to page 149 where it says "Python uses the indentation of statements under a header to group the statements in a nested block." I stopped reading and tossed the book on my bookshelf on a shelf full of unused & unloved technical manuals.
This is such a naive and stupid statement. Avoiding a language because block structure is dealt with via indentation instead of {}s? Peop
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
Because: One of the paradigms of computing (particularly in the Internet era) is that white-space is semantically/syntactically insignificant. Many programs and protocols ignore the amount of white-space in text, or at least just treat it as a delimiter. That fact alone means Python code doesn't play nice with that stuff. Sure you can have forum software which allows for
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
A language called Occam (used on a long since forgotten late 80s parallel
CPU called a Transputer) did the same and was derided for the same
reason. Funny how some people never learn.
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hold on... it gets to page 149 before pointing out the most important thing to be aware of in the language's syntax? That's a terrible book. Get another one.
Seriously, though, I was put off Python for a long time for the same reason. I've used whitespace-significant languages before (COBOL, and a functional language called Miranda) and had no end of trouble with indentation issues. But when I tried Python, it just worked, flawlessly. I've never had an issue because of indentation. The language works, it's easy to write, and programs are easier to read due to the lack of excess symbols. The syntax is very clean and readable.
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:3, Insightful)
Any editor worth its salt has a python mode/plugin, and in that there are convenient functions for "shift left" and "shift right" which will move the selected text one indentation level left or right. Cut and paste your code, then just shift it to the indentation level required. It really isn't that hard.
Jedidiah.
Re:Real hackers use Python. (Score:2)
haha, never mind that this is exactly how your code should be indented in the first place....
I'm not going to disagree. I just don't need the associated misbehavior that comes along with it if I fail to indent things right. Copy/Paste mistake, or similar and you have problems. Most of the major languages have chosen to ignore the significance of whitespace. It's a substantial mindset to relearn.
We're talking about a scripting language. Development speed is important to me, and I don't need my scripti
Re:planning to move from Perl 5.8 (Score:2)
Use whatever language suits you best.
Personally, I don't fully agree with Larry about one thing - I ha
I migrated from Perl 5.8 (Score:2)
Not me. I migrated (to Ruby) after years of using Perl because Perl's syntax is so horrible and complicated that I never managed to learn a lot of the important features I knew Perl had--like the ability to do object-oriented programming.
Ruby has much simpler syntax and scoping. That means it gets out of the
Re:I migrated from Perl 5.8 (Score:3, Insightful)
It's sad that people have trouble with Perl's syntax because hiding behind the scary surface is a brilliant sort of orderly chaos that's unlike any language I've ever used. In terms of Perl, as a language, I think I've begun to enter a class of 'Perl Mastery', and there are still things I find out about every now and then that the language does that are just utterly fantastic.
It is possible to write clea
Re:I migrated from Perl 5.8 (Score:2)
Yeah, and crazy people can find god in a bus station bathroom...
Hey, you like and admire Perl, you've achieved some sort of zen onene
Re:I migrated from Perl 5.8 (Score:2)
If the language is so rotten, why do you think that it's so incredibly popular?
Why is it so *wildly* portable (even moreso than Java)?
Why do huge sites like Amazon.com and Ticketmaster.com and Slashdot.org rely on it for their core business?
What other language with humble beginnings found
Re:Isn't Duke Nukem Forever coded in Perl 6? (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I have working Perl 6 code [perl.com].
Like the C programming language or Java or C++ or Python 3000 or Ruby or PHP or....
What does that even mean? Is Larry a committee now? (Yes, I know about @Larry. That doesn't make a meaningless cliche mean anything.)
Off the top of my head, cleaner syntax, better consistency, improved FFI, more powerful grammars, multi-methods, improved OO, a better VM, true garbage collection, better speed, currying, optional type inference, hyperoperators, junctions, improved reflection, integration of regular expressions and tree transformations, role-based typing, better distribution options, JIT, true macros, and built-in set operations matter. I probably missed a few.