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Perl is 26 Today

modernperlbooks.com

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Re: Perl is 26 Today

#21

Post by berntb »

collyw wrote: post #7
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #3

I'm a relatively new programmer. Been programming for around 4 years. I tried Perl, but felt like the world had moved on, so I never really committed to it. With PHP, Python, Ruby and Javascript... space seems tight for another scripting language. Languages like Lua have something special. What's special about Perl? Edit: I don't want to be hateful. The more the merrier obviously.

I moved from Perl to Python 3 years ago. Its true. Perl feels like a very powerful base language, moving to Python felt like you were taking a bit away (I know in reality you can probably achieve much the same things). Python on the other hand doesn't require you to implement your own basic functions (max, min , trim / strip ) as they are included already. Python stops me from shooting myself in the foot as often, by…

>> max, min [etc]

Perl has a minimal std library, to teach people to use CPAN I guess. But even Perl has util modules for trivial help functions in the std install (at least those which aren't one line of code to define).

The strongest argument for Perl today is CPAN and CPAN Testers, still the gold standard.

But all the scripting languages are really similar, there is no reason to learn another if you already know one.

Edit: You might want to check out the Modern Perl book, free online. Perl evolves quite fast.

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#22

Post by athenot »

Two main aspects of Perl that have always drawn me time and time again back to it are (1) the get-it-done mentality (there's more than one way to do it, and what really matters is completing the job) and (2) the huge repository of modules that is CPAN.

Evaluating other environments along those lines yielded interesting frustrations. In my opinion, the real contender is node.js, thanks to its minimalist approach on many things, and NPM.

Note: I'll admit that Node forces you to be as async as possible, but it's for a good cause so I can turn a blind eye on it. :)

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#23

Post by lmm »

mxey wrote: post #14
lmm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting article but seems to be missing the actual why of it. He still likes perl because... culture? Some people are still writing software in perl or cobol, sure - and some of that is good software that solves real problems. But the reason we think of the average programmer in one of these obsolete languages as "some sort of second-class technology citizen" is that, well, they are. Compared to the res…

I spend less time “working around language deficiencies, inadequate tooling and all the rest of it” in Perl than in, for example, Python.

Interesting. What does Python make harder? In Perl I find myself missing list comprehensions, shared-by-default threading, a well-integrated object system, and a comprehensive, integrated, popular web framework. (Also a standard way of doing event-driven programming, but that's a fair criticism of Python too). And while I'm sure the tooling functionality is there, everything just seems less obvious and standard (e.g. where's the virtualenv equivalent?)

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#24

Post by arc_of_descent »

Been using Perl for almost 10 years now. I've used Perl for almost everything. Web development using CGI::Application, developing my own web framework, console apps (using the ncurses library), POE (Perl Object Environment), Web socket stuff and more.

My main job currently involves maintaining and developing a huge code base in Perl including three websites (soon to expand to much more). Perl just works. I thoroughly enjoy coding in it. I've not spent too much time optimizing and testing code though. mod_perl is pretty fast in itself (using Apache).

That being said Perl certainly lacks the in-built features which would make meta programming a quick and easy job. Yes, I still have to start using Moose. Perhaps in 2014!

Happy 26th Birthday Perl! Without you, I wouldn't have a job!

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#25

Post by berntb »

rikacomet wrote: post #8

I recently turned into a Perl user. Though I must say, documentation about Perl with CGI, and pre-made scripts are a let down. I browsed many O-Reilly books on Perl, CGI is one of the least explanative topics. Some modules have very obscure explanation on CPAN, I don't mean any offense. If not for Perl Monks, my enthusiasm might have been lost midway.

"CGI Programming with Perl, 2nd Edition" is from the year 2000, otherwise I'd joke about 20th century called and want their library back. :-)

If you can't go to the modern frameworks, I quite like Dancer myself, you can get an ebook from O'Reilly (or used).

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#26

Post by berntb »

lmm wrote: post #23
mxey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend less time “working around language deficiencies, inadequate tooling and all the rest of it” in Perl than in, for example, Python.

Interesting. What does Python make harder? In Perl I find myself missing list comprehensions, shared-by-default threading, a well-integrated object system, and a comprehensive, integrated, popular web framework. (Also a standard way of doing event-driven programming, but that's a fair criticism of Python too). And while I'm sure the tooling functionality is there, everything just seems less obvious and standard (e.g.…

You really prefer Python threading to anything?!

You haven't found any of the major Perl web frameworks? You haven't seen Moose for OO? perlbrew? (Don't get me started on list comprehension, extra stuff to learn because Python lack real maps with real lambdas.) And so on...

Do you always have opinions on stuff you have no clue about?!

Start with getting the Modern Perl book and read it (free pdf). Ask (/search) on Perlmonks.

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#27

Post by rikacomet »

mxey wrote: post #13
rikacomet wrote: post #8

I recently turned into a Perl user. Though I must say, documentation about Perl with CGI, and pre-made scripts are a let down. I browsed many O-Reilly books on Perl, CGI is one of the least explanative topics. Some modules have very obscure explanation on CPAN, I don't mean any offense. If not for Perl Monks, my enthusiasm might have been lost midway.

CGI is not the way to go today. If you want to build web pages with Perl, check out http://mojolicio.us

Might I ask, in a nutshell.. why not CGI?

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#28

Post by garrettdreyfus »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #3

I'm a relatively new programmer. Been programming for around 4 years. I tried Perl, but felt like the world had moved on, so I never really committed to it. With PHP, Python, Ruby and Javascript... space seems tight for another scripting language. Languages like Lua have something special. What's special about Perl? Edit: I don't want to be hateful. The more the merrier obviously.

I first looked at perl last week and also shared your sentiment. At first when I saw perl I was aghast. The "ugly" $%@ syntax seemed pointless and unreadable. Then I decided to take a look at a non-beginner book, Intermediate Perl http://it-ebooks.info/book/879/. I was surprised and excited 50 pages in because I realized that Perl had a wealth of tricks , and that that "ugly" $%@ syntax actually had some cool repercussions. The other thing I noticed was that Perl's flexibility led to the ability to write code that was closer to how I would structure the command grammatically, for instance, "print x if x>5." I'm looking forward to learning perl further.

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#29

Post by rikacomet »

berntb wrote: post #25
rikacomet wrote: post #8

I recently turned into a Perl user. Though I must say, documentation about Perl with CGI, and pre-made scripts are a let down. I browsed many O-Reilly books on Perl, CGI is one of the least explanative topics. Some modules have very obscure explanation on CPAN, I don't mean any offense. If not for Perl Monks, my enthusiasm might have been lost midway.

"CGI Programming with Perl, 2nd Edition" is from the year 2000, otherwise I'd joke about 20th century called and want their library back. :-) If you can't go to the modern frameworks, I quite like Dancer myself, you can get an ebook from O'Reilly (or used).

whats so bad about CGI, even after FCGI?

Re: Perl is 26 Today

#30

Post by untothebreach »

rikacomet wrote: post #27
mxey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CGI is not the way to go today. If you want to build web pages with Perl, check out http://mojolicio.us

Might I ask, in a nutshell.. why not CGI?

(classic) CGI requires a full application start-up every time a request comes in, and so is very slow. If you have to use CGI, use FCGI (fast cgi) to solve that problem.

However, in recent years PSGI has started to become the standand in the community. As far as I know, it is modeled after Python's WSGI. All of the "major" perl web frameworks support it, the three big ones I can think of are Mojolicious[1], Dancer[2], and Catalyst[3].

1: https://metacpan.org/pod/Mojolicious

2: https://metacpan.org/pod/Dancer

3: https://metacpan.org/pod/catalyst

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