Not Your Grandfather’s Perl • Hacker News Board

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#41

Post by johnmc408 » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

Looking forward to v7 and intro docs that only use "even more" Modern Perl. For a bigger push, we should all volunteer on those "Do X in Y" language sites and add Perl examples. Same with Amazon Lambda and other opportunities where pick your language is available.

Also a modern OO seems nice, though not sure what is in it. Would also like to see a default async library (maybe POE, but I never used it and find the name a bit strange for a default...but then I like Tokio...) Not my area at all, but an opinionated way of async seems nice.

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#42

Post by thesuperbigfrog » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

The current state of Perl 5 for Python fans:

Perl 5: I'm not dead!

TIOBE: 'Ere! 'E says 'e's not dead!

Internet: Yes he is.

Perl 5: I'm not!

TIOBE: 'E isn't?

Internet: Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill...

Perl 5: I'm getting better!

Internet: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

TIOBE: I can't take 'im off like that! It's against regulations!

Perl 5: I don't want to go off the chart....

Internet: Oh, don't be such a baby.

TIOBE: I can't take 'im off....

Perl 5: I feel fine!

Internet: Well, do us a favor...

TIOBE: I can't!

Internet: Can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long...

TIOBE: No, gotta get to Reddit, they lost nine today.

Internet: Well, when's your next round?

TIOBE: Next year.

Perl 5: I think I'll go for a walk....

Internet: You're not fooling anyone, you know-- (to TIOBE) Look, isn't there something you can do...?

Perl 5: I feel happy! I feel happy!

=====================

You can write Perl in Latin: https://metacpan.org/dist/Lingua-Romana-Perligata/view/lib/L...

or Klingon: https://metacpan.org/pod/Lingua::tlhInganHol::yIghun

or whitespace: https://metacpan.org/pod/Acme::Bleach

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#43

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#44

Post by LordKano » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

When I was an intern, my boss insisted that I learn Perl. I had not yet been introduced to the ways of the monks but I learned quickly.

Perl is still my go-to language when I need to write something quickly.

I have so many purpose driven utilities that I have written in Perl, that it saves me several man-hours of work every month.

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#45

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #42

The current state of Perl 5 for Python fans: Perl 5: I'm not dead! TIOBE: 'Ere! 'E says 'e's not dead! Internet: Yes he is. Perl 5: I'm not! TIOBE: 'E isn't? Internet: Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill... Perl 5: I'm getting better! Internet: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment. TIOBE: I can't take 'im off like that! It's against regulations! Perl 5: I don't want to go off the chart.... Internet: Oh…

[deleted]

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#46

Post by IncRnd » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #42

The current state of Perl 5 for Python fans: Perl 5: I'm not dead! TIOBE: 'Ere! 'E says 'e's not dead! Internet: Yes he is. Perl 5: I'm not! TIOBE: 'E isn't? Internet: Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill... Perl 5: I'm getting better! Internet: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment. TIOBE: I can't take 'im off like that! It's against regulations! Perl 5: I don't want to go off the chart.... Internet: Oh…

You can even write perl to dump urls submitted by hn users, as this person I found does. [1]

[1] https://gist.github.com/adulau/939629

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#47

Post by ksherlock » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

Please don't blame bare word file handles on "C heritage"

--

Some of the improvements were needed because in places Perl’s Unix/C heritage shows through a little more than we’d like it to in the 21st century. One good example of this is bareword filehandles. You’re probably used Perl code to open a file looking like this:

open FH, 'filename.dat' or die;

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#48

Post by stjohnswarts » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

yakubin wrote: post #35

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #4

With function signatures and state variables added in 5.010, I consider Perl feature-complete and have not really missed anything from it for as long as I've been writing Perl. What I do appreciate that's missing from many other languages and systems is the extreme committment to backwards compatibility. The knowledge that the next minor release won't break existing scripts is underrated, IMO. Solo project with ~23K…

I’ve had very limited contact with Perl, but for scripting purposes it does seem like the best option, so I intend to sit down to it and learn it better. It looks like a great next step after sed and awk (perl -pe). I love the ability to write terse scripts, reasonable speed for a scripting language and, as you said, backwards-compatibility (such a stark contrast compared to Python).

I would argue that ruby as almost all the strengths of perl and conciseness with more coherency if you want a perl-like fluidity and terseness. I personally like python for anything that becomes more than a 100 lines of bash.

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#49

Post by rurban » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

wistlo wrote: post #13

"Bare bones" seems to be a good thing for Perl. I use Strawberry Perl on Windows and it is orders of magnitude faster than Powershell for processing large files of text strings using regular expressions. I hope the addition of a "new object-oriented programming framework" won't take away the "bare-bones" speed of the current release.

The best OO frameworks Mouse and cperl make it faster. Moose, Moo and Corinna signicantly slower. Guess which frameworks are recommended

Re: Not Your Grandfather’s Perl

#50

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

I still use Perl whenever I need to get something complex done quickly. Whether it's the handy command-line switches and features for easier one-liners, or just easier stream text processing, or easier external command execution, or the huge library of modules that often support things Python doesn't, Perl is my "fuck it, I just need to get this done" language.

I can't wait for the day that programming languages as a concept are obsolete. It feels exactly like hand-tool woodworking. I would love to stop building tables and chairs over and over, instead just buy them from Code IKEA.