Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Call for TPF volunteers: I know PHP, why should I use Perl? 9 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.

  • Note that the question is not "Why is Perl better than PHP", but rather "Why should I use it?"

    Off the top of my head:

    1. Perl is used in places that PHP isn't. You'll find Perl applications everywhere from unix system administration to car parking. Learning Perl gives you the opportunity to work in more places doing different things.
    2. In many cases somebody else has written most of your application for you. CPAN is a stupidly useful resource.
    3. All languages make some things easier and some things harder.

    • Devil's Advocate (Score:2)

      by ziggy (25) on 2005.10.20 11:41 (#44046) Journal

      (Attempting to channel a recalcitrant, skeptical PHP programmer....)

      Perl is used in places that PHP isn't. You'll find Perl applications everywhere from unix system administration to car parking. Learning Perl gives you the opportunity to work in more places doing different things.

      That's fine, but why should I care? I'm never going to use a Sequent, port my application to AIX 4 or DYNIX. It's nice that sysadmins can use Perl, but if I don't care about writing sysadmin scripts, what's the point?

      If the web is the dominant development platform, and PHP makes it easy to develop cross platform web apps, what does Perl provide that PHP lacks that I care about? Of the features that are really, truly different, which are actually meaningful? I mean, it's nice that Perl has BEGIN blocks and __DATA__ sections, but if I never use them, where's the benefit?

      Finally, any interesting new applications are going to be on the web. If there is some radical cool car parking application that Perl does today that isn't web-based, the next one will be web-based, and may as well be written in PHP.

      All languages make some things easier and some things harder. Learning another language broadens the mind. Learning Perl well will open you to some new techniques, some of which you can take with you to other languages - including PHP.

      Forget the platitudes -- what does Perl provide here? If I'm going to bother learning a language different from PHP to broaden my horizons, why start with something so similar to PHP? Why not just go full bore and dive into Scheme, Lisp, Erlang, Forth, Smalltalk or Haskell?

      Also, if there are any benefits from Perl (or any other language), why should I be the one who wastes my time learning Perl with the explicit purpose of not using it? Why not just wait for other Perl programmers to bring those ideas with them into PHP? If those are really killer techniques, they'll come to PHP eventually, or else they really can't be killer techniques, can they?

      • Yes, exactly. These questions are the ones that we need to anticipate in writing this. We need to explain the tangible benefits, not the soft fuzzy ones.
        --

        --
        xoa

      • I noticed you addressed points 1 and 3, but not point 2. I notice also that point 2 has the best chance of achieving the ">33% increase in productivity" someone else mentioned.

        Also, if there are any benefits from Perl (or any other language), why should I be the one who wastes my time learning Perl with the explicit purpose of not using it?

        Not answering the question of why, but the idea of learning things you won't use doesn't exist (much) since you can learn a minimal subset of Perl easily and in

        --
        J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

        • I noticed you addressed points 1 and 3, but not point 2. I notice also that point 2 has the best chance of achieving the ">33% increase in productivity" someone else mentioned.

          The benefits and drawbacks of CPAN are well known. And, as a devil's advocate, my point isn't to be Mr. Internet Politics Debater and natter on with "you're wrong and here's why", but to highlight some flaws in your argument that need to be addressed.

          Not answering the question of why, but the idea of learning things you

          • It was Adrian's argument, not mine, and I was just trying to point out that CPAN was definitely a selling point that couldn't be spoken against.
            --
            J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

      • Responding to the recalcitrant, sceptical PHP programmer rather than ziggy :-)

        That's fine, but why should I care? I'm never going to use a Sequent, port my application to AIX 4 or DYNIX. It's nice that sysadmins can use Perl, but if I don't care about writing sysadmin scripts, what's the point?

        None.

        Let me be clear. I'm not trying to say "you should drop PHP and use Perl". I'm saying "here are some reasons you should consider learning Perl as well".

        If none of them apply, then don't learn Perl. Does

        • (still channelling the recalcitrant, sceptical PHP programmer...)

          Learning more programming languages can only make you more employable. If your concentrating on web development targeting the other primary language used for web development would seem sensible.

          Your defending the argument with still more platitudes. Specifically, you're making a generalized argument that PHP programmers should learn more languages, but you're not saying anything specific about why PHP programmers should learn Perl. (

          • (still responding to the recalcitrant, sceptical PHP programmer...)

            Your defending the argument with still more platitudes. Specifically, you're making a generalized argument that PHP programmers should learn more languages, but you're not saying anything specific about why PHP programmers should learn Perl

            I thought the "targeting the other primary language used for web development" was fairly specific :-)

            In fact, it really highlights that you should just skip Perl/HOP and jump straight into Scheme/

Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.