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Perl is 25 years old today

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Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#31

Post by shabble »

frozenport wrote: post #7
kamaal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did get the point of your comment, are you are trying to convey that you have problems with the Perl philosophy- "There is more than one way to do it(TIMTOWTDI)"?

1. Yes 2. I also don't like that their naming convention doesn't reflect functionality. How would you assign carp, cluck, croak and confess functions?

If you know enough about the standard Perl warn() and die(), it turns out:

croak(): (slang) To die[1]

confess(): to provide information, commonly[2] as one is dying[3]

carp(): To complain, often at length and of minor details[4]

cluck(): Not actually sure about this one, although 'clucking their disapproval' seems to be something of an english idiom.

So yeah, there's some logic to the choices, even if it is rather whimsical. It's a valid point to say it's not immediately obvious, but it doesn't take long (from experience) to figure what they do and out which one you want for a given situation.

[1] http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/01/croak.html

[2] Obviously some religions promote regular confession, but the 'deathbed confession' is afaik common even among the less pious/religious.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathbed_confession

[4] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/carping

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#33

Post by webreac »

smoyer wrote: post #22
berntb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A karma 3 account. Where are the Perl-hating trolls coming from on HN? (I thought Guido said that it was time to stop trolling, so it isn't Python people now?)

Hate is an emotional response that humans have ... how can you tell if the comment was trolling or simply a visceral response? I don't hate Perl (I first learned CGI programming with it), but I do think there are better ways to write maintainable, enterprise scale software. There are two main problems with Perl (as I see it): 1) The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain res…

I am a perl lover. For me, the TIMTOWTDI means mainly that I can write code the way I think. When I have an idea of a solution for a problem, I have no effort to make to translate this idea into perl because there exists always a concise syntax for it. Perl does not limit your thinking. Instead of loosing time fighting to adapt your mind to the language, you have freedom to improve your skills. The more you improves, the more you find cases where not common syntaxes appear to be useful. At the end, when you are an experienced perl programmer, you master most of the syntax "tricks" used by the others experienced perl programmers.

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#34

Post by shabble »

berntb wrote: post #27
smoyer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate is an emotional response that humans have ... how can you tell if the comment was trolling or simply a visceral response? I don't hate Perl (I first learned CGI programming with it), but I do think there are better ways to write maintainable, enterprise scale software. There are two main problems with Perl (as I see it): 1) The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain res…

>> The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain results I can't see any relevance for a professional choice if newbies can shoot bigger holes in their foot with a certain tool. That is a natural result of a powerful tool. >> Perl experts seem to delight Anecdotal. Ten years old description of half humorous use (and exercises). Also very different from best practices even then…

I think there's a valid argument in the fact that it's diverse enough that you could have 2 highly experienced Perl coders who nevertheless disagree about an awful lot of things[1].

In professional environments or large projects, hopefully you're got a reasonably comprehensive style guides (or better yet, perlcritic config), but for smaller things, it can be a bit of a struggle to understand and conform to the specific style in question if you're trying to contribute to something new.

I don't think it's enough of an argument to dismiss the language though, and agree that the benefits far outweigh the somewhat-pointy learning curve.

[1] The old "Everyone uses 10% of C++, but they all have a different 10%" joke, basically.

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#35

Post by kamaal »

mahmud wrote: post #29
VLM wrote: post #21

I've found over the past decade or so that when I write a "perl" program I'm really writing about five lines of glue code around multiple CPAN packages. Well maybe more than 5 lines for control flow, some business-logic error handling, etc. When I write in another language I spend a long time looking for a library like the ten I'd find in CPAN, sometimes I find one but often enough not, then a long time complaining a…

CPAN might be centralized, but Java libraries are far superior. This is not a pissing contest, but a fact. The java runtime makes everything else look amateurish and unprepared. Debugging, profiling, introspection and distribution, all built into the platform. Attach to any running process and analyze away. Perl is good when it works, but when it doesn't, it's cryptic stack traces and `exit -1`, nothing meaningful.

>>The java runtime makes everything else look amateurish and unprepared.

The java 'runtime' is hardly Java. Its like saying Pentium is C.

Java the language is hardly comparable with a scripting language like Perl.

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#36

Post by beothorn »

berntb wrote: post #30
mahmud wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPAN might be centralized, but Java libraries are far superior. This is not a pissing contest, but a fact. The java runtime makes everything else look amateurish and unprepared. Debugging, profiling, introspection and distribution, all built into the platform. Attach to any running process and analyze away. Perl is good when it works, but when it doesn't, it's cryptic stack traces and `exit -1`, nothing meaningful.

Half the point of CPAN is "installability", it is trivial to d/l and install lots of modules. There is also CPAN Testing which drastically helps portability. Can Java really compete with a Perl module that has a long list of dependencies (50+ is a pain but will work) and some code tying it together...? [That was the example in the GP post.] With all due respect to the Java runtime (if not its memory use :-( ), it is…

"Can Java really compete with a Perl module that has a long list of dependencies (50+ is a pain but will work) and some code tying it together...? " Maven does it. I'm pretty sure that all main languages have their equivalents too.

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#37

Post by smoyer »

berntb wrote: post #27
smoyer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate is an emotional response that humans have ... how can you tell if the comment was trolling or simply a visceral response? I don't hate Perl (I first learned CGI programming with it), but I do think there are better ways to write maintainable, enterprise scale software. There are two main problems with Perl (as I see it): 1) The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain res…

>> The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain results I can't see any relevance for a professional choice if newbies can shoot bigger holes in their foot with a certain tool. That is a natural result of a powerful tool. >> Perl experts seem to delight Anecdotal. Ten years old description of half humorous use (and exercises). Also very different from best practices even then…

"That is a natural result of a powerful tool."

I never claimed that Perl wasn't powerful ... in fact I think I stated the opposite. Where I work, Perl is the lingua franca of the ops team and they certainly get things done. But the newbies don't shoot holes in their foot ... they blow it clear off and often don't survive.

My comment above may be perceived as a bit trollish but I was also thinking about "thanking Perl for a job well done". I quit Perl for what I consider valid reasons (which you completely dismiss - My experience may be "anecdotal" to you, but it's still my experience) which you're clearly not going to agree with. But notice that I never said "you shouldn't use it". I'll even admit that some people accomplish a lot with it ... and that CPAN is almost the gold standard for everything (with the exception of Maven Central I think).

So keep using Perl if you want ... but hopefully now you'll understand those of us that will no longer use it and why it's popularity is declining (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....). I expect I'll replace my current tools with something better (more productive/safer/maintainable) in the next 5 years since that's been a continuing pattern for me. What will you be using in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years?

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#38

Post by elliottcarlson »

smoyer wrote: post #22
berntb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A karma 3 account. Where are the Perl-hating trolls coming from on HN? (I thought Guido said that it was time to stop trolling, so it isn't Python people now?)

Hate is an emotional response that humans have ... how can you tell if the comment was trolling or simply a visceral response? I don't hate Perl (I first learned CGI programming with it), but I do think there are better ways to write maintainable, enterprise scale software. There are two main problems with Perl (as I see it): 1) The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain res…

>> The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain results

How is this different than any other language? You can write bad code in any language. Perl might allow for more obfuscated code which really makes it harder to read - but that again reflects on the programmer - not the language. Take a look at a code in PHP, Python, C, or any language written by "newbs" and you will see poor practices used everywhere.

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#39

Post by mstevens »

perlgeek wrote: post #23
mstevens wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly self-promotion, but you can get a variety of old perl sources at http://www.etla.org/retroperl/ (collected by someone non-me, I can't remember who though) I had thought someone had done a perl 1 release that built on modern systems, but on a quick hunt I can't find it.

The perl source repository quite many historic releases also, and the first few commit messages also contain the accompanying release notes. See for example https://github.com/mirrors/perl/commit/8d063cd8450e59ea1c611... for the perl 1.0 annoucement (click on the [...] link to get the full commit message).

ooh, cool, I didn't know that was there.

My more active interest in perl was pre-git :)

Re: Perl is 25 years old today

#40

Post by smoyer »

webreac wrote: post #33
smoyer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate is an emotional response that humans have ... how can you tell if the comment was trolling or simply a visceral response? I don't hate Perl (I first learned CGI programming with it), but I do think there are better ways to write maintainable, enterprise scale software. There are two main problems with Perl (as I see it): 1) The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain res…

I am a perl lover. For me, the TIMTOWTDI means mainly that I can write code the way I think. When I have an idea of a solution for a problem, I have no effort to make to translate this idea into perl because there exists always a concise syntax for it. Perl does not limit your thinking. Instead of loosing time fighting to adapt your mind to the language, you have freedom to improve your skills. The more you improves,…

Hmmm ... I have found the same feeling with every language I've mastered. I never did master Perl but even if I had, I would have set it aside like most of the other languages that I have mastered when a compelling new language/tool/system came out. I try not to form an emotional relationship with my tools as it might adversely limit my adaptability.
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