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Perlisisms (1982)

cs.yale.edu

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Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#52

Post by ink_13 »

ebiederm wrote: post #50
isityettime wrote: post #25

> A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing. This one stood out to me. I'd say it's a favorite. These others are interesting in the age of LLMs: > 93. When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. > 114. Within a computer natural language is unnatural. > 115. Most people find the concept of programming o…

> 36. The use of a program to prove the 4 color theorem will not change mathematics -- it merely demonstrates the theorem, a challenge for a century, is probably not important to mathematicians.

For the sake of completeness, the Four Colour Theorem was proved with the aid of a computer in 1976, although there were, er, quibbles with the original published result not finally put to bed until 1989. It was the first major theorem to be proved with computer assistance (Appel and Haken broke the theorem down to ~1400 configurations that were all computer verified).

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#53

Post by userbinator »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #39
rpdillon wrote: post #27

My favorite has always been: > 31. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. Kind of close to "build the first one to throw away".

And then try not to fall into second system effect. So plan to build a third system...

Very ironic, considering the story of Perl 6.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#56

Post by wredcoll »

cwnyth wrote: post #55
zephen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, I suppose, nightmares are dreams.

Perl is only as scary as its coder can make it.

I've never understood why so many self-declared programmers are so eager to brag that they can't understand a programming language which is, frankly, not really that complicated.

I don't particularly like, say, lisp, but I can in fact understand lisp programs or write them if I need to.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#57

Post by zephen »

wredcoll wrote: post #56
cwnyth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perl is only as scary as its coder can make it.

I've never understood why so many self-declared programmers are so eager to brag that they can't understand a programming language which is, frankly, not really that complicated. I don't particularly like, say, lisp, but I can in fact understand lisp programs or write them if I need to.

I admit I also don't understand the characterization of perl as a write-only language, although I can make a guess about how it's because a lot of perl programs have many embedded regular expressions, and, like many programmers, I'm not particularly thrilled by things like sigils, and I don't find the syntax particularly good.

You are right that it's not that complicated, but like any language that I'm not interested in mastering, the amount of learning that it would take to create idiomatic perl is not an investment I'm willing to make.

And, given that none of the perl scripts that I was tasked with modifying were very long, I have always treated it, rather than a write-only language, as a read-only language; when someone hands me something in perl that needs to be updated, it gets recoded in something else.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#58

Post by isomorphic_duck »

isityettime wrote: post #25

> A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing. This one stood out to me. I'd say it's a favorite. These others are interesting in the age of LLMs: > 93. When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. > 114. Within a computer natural language is unnatural. > 115. Most people find the concept of programming o…

Also 100, which speaks to the infinite demand of software - We will never run out of things to program as long as there is a single program around.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#59

Post by utopiah »

isityettime wrote: post #25

> A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing. This one stood out to me. I'd say it's a favorite. These others are interesting in the age of LLMs: > 93. When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. > 114. Within a computer natural language is unnatural. > 115. Most people find the concept of programming o…

> A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.

Yep I have it in https://fabien.benetou.fr/Languages/Languages#MakingYourOwn and few other places in my notes.

I keep it in mind especially when I discuss about programming with non programmers, arguing that the point isn't to bend a machine to your will but rather to become a better thinker. Getting machines to do what you need is "just" an extremely powerful side effect. This is also inspired by Papert and others.

Re: Perlisisms (1982)

#60

Post by benj111 »

>18. A program without a loop and a structured variable isn't worth writing

I kind of disagree. It may not be a very big or interesting program but a hell of a lot of useful stuff is done on spread sheets without any loops or anything but numbers.

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