use Perl

brian d foy asked people why they are passionate about Perl. This is my reply to this question...

The person who introduced me to Perl showed me that...
There was no person who introduced me to Perl. In my vocational training I worked for two different companys, both in the bioinformatics sector. In the first company I had to write a parser for files in a special format - and I had to use Java. In the second company they asked me if I can use Perl for the same kind of parser. I haven't heard about Perl until then. But I said that I'll have a look at Perl and give it a try. I was impressed that I can do the same job with less pain. The parser in Perl was shorter, faster and more robust.

I first starting using Perl to...
do a lot of bioinformatics stuff.

I kept using Perl because...
Perl is the right thing for me. I feel good when using Perl and I get my jobs done. And the people in the bioinformatics department only knew Perl. There is BioPerl, a great bundle of modules for bioinformatics and it helped me a lot.
Everyone knows that one of Perl's strengths is "text processing" and bioinformatics mean a lot of "text processing", so it was the right tool.

I can't stop thinking about Perl...
Indeed, I think about Perl all the time. My jobs require Perl, and there is "$foo",...

I'm still using Perl because...Perl is the right thing for me. I feel good when using Perl and I get my jobs done. It makes my life easier.

I get other people to use Perl by...
talking to them. I show them how fast they can get solutions for their problems. CPAN to the rescue ;-)

I also program in ... and ..., but I like Perl better since...
I also use PHP and Java, but there is no CPAN for PHP (ok, there is PEAR, but that is not as good as CPAN) or Java. I like that Perl is so flexible and much more...