Perl - the Detroit of scripting languages

Apparently one of the mods decided i shouldn't be able to reply, thus different account. Here's a serious answer for you:

You complained about the simple presence of sigils, without even stopping to think and consider what advantages they bring. I may be rude, but close-minded? No.

>>That you can build an OO system comparable to what other languages have built-in

My explicit point was that it is better [edit: which was an answer to your question about value from flexibility, compared to the cognitive cost], don't do straw man attacks please. (Are you trolling?)

Edit: Thanks for the downvote. :-)

Edit 2: As answer to the next long, long comment with parts going all over: Of course complexity has costs. if you really just want a good reference on Moose to see exactly what it is, ask Mithaldu. He probably has better sources than me. This is what I give people (it is getting old): http://rjbs.manxome.org/talks/moose/Moose.pdf

Edit 3: And to avoid being called a "troll" -- don't write shit like "In 2013 nearly every problem has a language more appropriate than Perl." while you acknowledge you don't know the subject...

Perl is actually far from abandoned and I would venture to guess (based on no facts and figures but my own personal experience) that there are more lines of Perl in production today than Python or Ruby combined.

But how can that be?! Building a large scale application with Perl would be like building a F111A Aardvark out of duct tape! Quite simply, because Perl is the perfect duct tape. Too many people (knowingly or not) think of Perl as a crappy version of Python when it's actually shell scripting on steroids.

You see, way up here, where projects are constantly in development, paradigms are constantly shifting, and people are building new and exciting things, Perl is an unwelcome high school acquaintance who shows up at the party and makes everybody feel awkward and bad. But way down there, where people are just trying to keep Sputnik up and running until the Soviet Union collapses, Perl is a rock star! If it's too "small" for Java but too "large" for .ksh -- guess what, use Perl.

In my opinion, if you want a scripting language with function signatures, little to no support for UNIX commands, real object orientation (Moose), yadda yadda yadda... just use Python. No one's going to blame you. Larry Wall's not gonna feel bad. You have a right to your impact gun and bolts.

Just leave my duct tape alone.

When someone says two systems are comparable, it is a different claim than that two systems are equivalent. In order for something to be better than something else they have to be comparable. Dynamic typing can be better than static typing only because they're both approaches to typing (please don't confuse this example with an opinion); static typing cannot be better than lexical scope because they're not comparable.

We're talking about the cost/benefit of flexibility as evidenced by systems like Moose. It's quite irrelevant to my point whether Moose is better or not, so it is quite a stretch to accuse me of a straw man attack. For that to be the case, I'd have to have said that Moose is worse than (say) Python's OO therefore flexibility is bad and Perl is bad by extension. What I'm actually saying is that flexibility isn't free, it has a cost, and that the cost must be offset by other benefits. If Moose is better, that's a benefit that might outweigh the cost, but nobody seems to be interested in telling me how it's better when they could instead attack the argument, by, for instance, hauling out the well-worn stack of logical fallacy accusations. If I sound irritable, it's only because I start conversations on HN in good faith expecting, you know, a conversation, and these kinds of vitriol-powered slamfests are not what I have in mind. Am I a troll indeed.

Edit: One need not know a language to find oneself in a niche where that language might be more appropriate. I didn't mean that remark to offend and I regret my wording. I certainly wasn't out to troll. That said, surely you do not believe one must learn a language inside out before knowing whether it is appropriate to a domain. I know many languages and work in several domains and never find myself thinking Perl would be better. I might not be in the right domains, but if we were having this conversation about C++, Java or Haskell it would be easier to rattle off a few example domains rather than scoff at the question.

> (disclaimer: I live in Flint, MI, another of those top-5 cities)

Me too! Most violent city, 3 years running!