use Perl

• It's true for authors of editors at least... (Score:1)

  by Alias (5735) on 2007.09.26 19:18 (#58055) Homepage Journal

  "Modern languages have so many features that they must keep the grammar small in order to reduce the learning curve" ... for tool writers.
  
  God knows it makes life easier.
  
  My (modified and I hope more accurate) argument would be that a simpler syntax makes writing editors and other tools easier, and the quality of the tools make learning and using a language easier.
  
  Perl doesn't do well on that metric either :/
  
  

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:2)

    by pudge (1)

    You're right, it is all about context, and even then, it is very subjective. Which is why we have so many languages with so many differences. We don't agree very much on the Best Way.
    
    I read some of this article and man, it's got screwy logic. Like "variables are global by default" is bad. Why? There's no objective truth there. And if he doesn't like it, use strict and the problem goes away. BFD.
    
    And then there was this gem:

        ${$arrayRef}[0]=4;  #YUCK! Modify the callers array.

    Yet
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Alias (5735)

      > I think it shows that he doesn't really understand Perl, and he is arguing largely from ignorance.
      
      Yup, pretty much.
      
      I'd say there's really not any useful points to recover from that article, except what we already know about the relationship between grammar and tool quality.
  • LADs and LASSes (Score:1)

    by mr_bean (3802)

    That's an important insight, I think. I wouldn't have had such a good relationship with perl if I hadn't had one with my editor.
    
    grammar: Language Acquisition Device
    tools: Language Acquisition Support System