use Perl

• Evangelism? (Score:1)

  by DAxelrod (4649)

  I, too wondered about the absence of Larry Wall. He writes wonderfully, and his answers to those questions might provide some insight.
  
  That said, the author of the article says "Not everyone responded to my e-mail, not everyone agreed to answer the questions". Given that, do we actually know who was asked?
  
  Secondly, I may be reading what you wrote unfairly, but it sounds like the primary reason that you want to promote Perl is so that you have job security and don't have to learn other languages. While I cert
  • Re:Evangelism? (Score:2)

    by Purdy (2383) <jasonNO@SPAMpurdy.info> on 2006.10.10 12:12 (#50930) Homepage Journal

    *laugh* - yeah, job security is great stuff! My uncle's 60 and a COBOL programmer who has reached the end of his shelf-life. :( I've personally seen what the end of the road looks like and it ain't pretty.
    
    That said, I agree - Perl isn't for everything. Device drivers, firmware and low-level foundational pieces aside, when you're faced with an algorithm problem, you should be able to use the language you're most familiar with.
    
    For example, I took a look at the first practice room problem in TopCoder, which is a decoding problem where (roughly) you have to decrement each digit in a string. That's the challenge and to solve it, I immediately think in Perl, where I may split the string and decrement each digit and then join it at the end. However, I can't do that in Perl at TopCoder - just C#, C++, Java or VB. Why not Perl? That's my point - there's no technical reason why Perl shouldn't be available to solve that type of problem (esp. if people are throwing VB at it ;)).
    
    These may look like slights now, but these type of examples build until eventually Perl is no longer available anywhere.
    
    It's not a problem of learning new languages/technology, at least not now. But when we get older, we get more set in our ways (Why do you think advertisers target 18-34 year olds? They want to lock you in before you get set) and learning a new language at that point may be harder than you may think. Guess this is a good point to tell my future self to be more flexible and willing to learn new stuff! ;)
    
    Peace,
    
    Jason

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    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Purdy (2383)

      Posted too quickly ;)

      These may look like slights now, but these type of examples build until eventually Perl is no longer available anywhere.

      Disclaimer: Yeah, that's fatalistic and should be taken w/ a grain of salt. ;)