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The Perl Renaissance

lanyrd.com

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Re: The Perl Renaissance

#21

Post by sylvinus »

wazoox wrote: post #5
nnq wrote: post #2

...don't get mad for the question, but: anybody has any arguments for using Perl instead of, let's say Python, these days? (besides the "I already know it incredibly well" argument) ...cause the lack of an answer to such a question has only one conclusion: the language is dying, even if this is not already happening in a visible way! (don't get me wrong, I'm not a Perl hater, and fyi, I think the world would be a muc…

Python significant white space. Really, that's what preventing me for ever liking Python.

Opinions on Python aside, I'd never hire somebody saying something like that at an interview, even about a language I don't like. You should really look past petty details when evaluating any tech and come up with actual arguments.

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#22

Post by nnq »

knotz wrote: post #10
nnq wrote: post #2

...don't get mad for the question, but: anybody has any arguments for using Perl instead of, let's say Python, these days? (besides the "I already know it incredibly well" argument) ...cause the lack of an answer to such a question has only one conclusion: the language is dying, even if this is not already happening in a visible way! (don't get me wrong, I'm not a Perl hater, and fyi, I think the world would be a muc…

It's a very fun language to begin with. Which is not unimportant if you want to keep being motivated after three decades being a programmer. Peter Norvig described 7 features which made Lisp different. Perl shares 6 of them. Important features like first-class functions, dynamic access to the symbol table, and automatic storage management. (source "High Order Perl" by MJ Dominus).

well, putting aside things "dynamic access to the symbol table" or run-time ast manipulation types of black magic, first class functions and "automatic storage management" are available in both Python, Ruby (...yeah, you need to twist your mind towards thinking in blocks/procs as first class functions, which annoys the hell outta me, but doesn't seem to be a problem for others) and most other "dynamic" languages.

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#23

Post by mhd »

nnq wrote: post #9
mhd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's dying, but not visibly? I can't really parse that, but I bet the answer will contain quite a few Perl 6 references…

I use "visibly dying" for a technology that people are migrating away from - this usually generates things like blog posts titled "X is moving away from RoR because it's crap and rewriting their stack in new fangled scala framework". But there are other ways something like a language can die in: no new projects get written in it, no new programmers learn it etc. ...this is a slow "death in silence and darkness" (thin…

I see what you mean. And just a few years ago I would've agree that this applies to Perl. But then we got projects like Moose, Dancer, Mojolicious, the whole "Modern Perl" movement and a renewed focus on Perl 5 (very regular releases). I think a part of the community was waiting for Perl 6 and thus everything was a bit stagnant, but lately I don't get that feeling anymore.

It feels closer to Firefox, which is showing some renewed vigor lately, than to e.g. Tcl (sadly…).

This isn't really the only presentation/post about this. After all, it's not like Django and Rails receive the same amount of hype as they did in the beginning, so if you're just going by that, we probably all should switch entirely to Go and Node…

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#24

Post by jeremyjh »

coldtea wrote: post #11
wazoox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python significant white space. Really, that's what preventing me for ever liking Python.

Get an editor that shows whitespace. (Non)Problem solved. Not to mention you should indent your code exactly the same way (in a consistent format, either tabs or spaces) with how you'd indented Python code.

It isn't totally solved. For example, you cannot write a lambda that contains a line-break. Its not a big problem, but it is a trade-off.

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#25

Post by nnq »

autarch wrote: post #13
nnq wrote: post #2

...don't get mad for the question, but: anybody has any arguments for using Perl instead of, let's say Python, these days? (besides the "I already know it incredibly well" argument) ...cause the lack of an answer to such a question has only one conclusion: the language is dying, even if this is not already happening in a visible way! (don't get me wrong, I'm not a Perl hater, and fyi, I think the world would be a muc…

...don't get mad for the question, but: anybody has any arguments for using Python instead of, let's say Ruby, these days? (besides the "I already know it incredibly well" argument) ...cause the lack of an answer to such a question has only one conclusion: the language is dying, even if this is not already happening in a visible way! (don't get me wrong, I'm not a Python hater, and fyi, I think the world would be a m…

I get the joke, but there are thousands of people currently learning either Ruby or Python and tons of classes for them, it's incredibly easy to hire either a Python or a Ruby (or PHP or Javascript) programmer and so on... while Perl is slowly falling off the radar.

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#26

Post by toddh »

nnq wrote: post #2

...don't get mad for the question, but: anybody has any arguments for using Perl instead of, let's say Python, these days? (besides the "I already know it incredibly well" argument) ...cause the lack of an answer to such a question has only one conclusion: the language is dying, even if this is not already happening in a visible way! (don't get me wrong, I'm not a Perl hater, and fyi, I think the world would be a muc…

Text processing with interpolation, the dynamic type system, and regular expressions is insanely easy as they are integrated directly into the language. You don't have a lot match, compile, and match group type scaffolding in your code.

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#27

Post by nnq »

jeremyjh wrote: post #24
coldtea wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get an editor that shows whitespace. (Non)Problem solved. Not to mention you should indent your code exactly the same way (in a consistent format, either tabs or spaces) with how you'd indented Python code.

It isn't totally solved. For example, you cannot write a lambda that contains a line-break. Its not a big problem, but it is a trade-off.

significant whitespace is not why you cannot write a lambda that contains a line-break. the problems are not really related. just ditch the difference between statements and expressions and allow multi-line expressions. true, then it will no longer be Python but a whole different language :)

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#28

Post by nnq »

wazoox wrote: post #5
nnq wrote: post #2

...don't get mad for the question, but: anybody has any arguments for using Perl instead of, let's say Python, these days? (besides the "I already know it incredibly well" argument) ...cause the lack of an answer to such a question has only one conclusion: the language is dying, even if this is not already happening in a visible way! (don't get me wrong, I'm not a Perl hater, and fyi, I think the world would be a muc…

Python significant white space. Really, that's what preventing me for ever liking Python.

I agree, "language aesthetics" matters ...that's why I hate variable prefixing with "$", "%" or "@" :) (and out of all ideas PHP could have gotten out of Perl, it had to be this one, and in a laughable way that makes it useless as arrays also use "$") but I could understand Larry's reasoning that "things that are different should look different" and I wouldn't avoid the language just for this reason.

Re: The Perl Renaissance

#29

Post by nnq »

sylvinus wrote: post #21
wazoox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python significant white space. Really, that's what preventing me for ever liking Python.

Opinions on Python aside, I'd never hire somebody saying something like that at an interview, even about a language I don't like. You should really look past petty details when evaluating any tech and come up with actual arguments.

Really, why? You wouldn't hire someone that has some "language aesthetic preferences", although a bit different that the mainstream ones? He said "preventing me for ever liking Python" not "I'll never touch it because of this".
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