use Perl

• Long standing problem (Score:2)

  by ziggy (25)

  An OSCon or two ago, I was talking to a manager at a prominent open source company. He was very aware of the power of Perl and the capabilities of Perl hackers. I asked him under what circumstances he'd hire Perl developers, and if there were any stumbling blocks, what they were.
  
  For one-off kinds of projects, he said he'd be hesitant to hire Perl programmers to build something. Part of it is the hiring risk that your brother speaks about, but his perspective was from a risk mitigation perspective. After
  • Re:Long standing problem (Score:1)

    by Abigail (26)

    It's not just managers. Far from that. There are many knowledgable people who won't touch Perl with a 10 foot pole. Very good programmers. And they are right, Perl isn't their thing.

    It's not just perception. The problems people see with Perl are real. Perl is a handy tool. Multipurpose. But it's also difficult to handle, it's dangerous, and it has a lot of quircks. It's not for everyone. In fact, it's not the right language of many people currently using Perl. If I look at Perlmonks or Usenet, I'd say th
    • Re:Long standing problem (Score:1)

      by reneeb (6493)

      Why do you think, so many programmers shouldn't program Perl? Many of them started with an other programming language (may be Java) and now start to learn Perl. May be they have to solve a problem that can be solved with Perl in a better way than the solution written in Java would be.
      
      I noticed that more and more discussions about the future of Perl start. I think, that Perl can get in trouble, because outstanding people have a false perception of Perl.
      
      Why do all people compare Perl and Java? They have
      • Re:Long standing problem (Score:1)

        by Abigail (26) on 2006.01.28 19:21 (#45924) Journal

        Why do you think, so many programmers shouldn't program Perl? Many of them started with an other programming language (may be Java) and now start to learn Perl. May be they have to solve a problem that can be solved with Perl in a better way than the solution written in Java would be.

        The mistake you are making here is that you assume that it's that problem that makes a language suitable. And while the problem plays some role in picking the right language, the programmer is far more important.

        Why do all people compare Perl and Java? They have different approaches. They should be used for different things. Ok, you can do things in Perl what Java is made for and vice versa, but why should I do that?

        Most problems that can be solved well in Perl can be solved well in Java or Ruby or C or some other language.

        Perl isn't a language that's suitable for a particular set of problems. Perl is a language that's suitable for a particular set of programmers. Perl has its things that make it Perl. It's terse, it's context sensitive, etc. Rewarding if you can deal with it, but frustrating for many. Some people prefer simplicity, or orthogonality. For them, Perl isn't the right choice. Regardless of the problem.

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