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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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Kitchen Sink Language 2 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • but going against the mainstream often makes people mistake insight and truth for anger. His comment:

    "perhaps Perl's biggest advantage is in having libraries for the most obscure tasks.

    Yes, that is my point. It's biggest advantage has nothing to do with the language itself, but rather the social/historical context. And that context could as easily have been/be established for Haskell, if people (had) want(ed) it to be that way.

    (I'm sorry but I really need to get this off my chest, again:) Scr

    • I don't think Frank et al are sneering at Perl6 because @Larry are taking a 'we don't care if people leave as we will build perl6 and more will appear as if by magic.' attitude. That seems to be your issue. Frank is sneering because Perl does not measure up to his ideals. It is no different then some literary writers sneering at mass-market or genre writers while bemoaning that the stupid unwashed masses don't recognize their genius (while conveniently forgetting that Shakespeare and Dickens were in fact mass market entertainment).

      It's that attitude that drives me nuts. Amongst my many (brief) majors I majored in English. Take Frank, throw on a blazer with elbow patches, throw him in the English department and he would write a 10,000 word analysis of Catch 22 (althought that probably sold too many copies to be any good) but be unable to name his favourite part.

      What Frank (and Frank at this point is just some composite) doesn't realize is that in general people don't give a shit about the "elegance" and "conceptual purity" of the tools they use. They just want tools that will let them do their job more effectively. For me Perl meets that criteria for many problem domains and Perl 6 will scale with me as I move into other areas.

      Would lisp do the same or better? Sure. Haskell? I think Autrijus has shown all of us how productive and elegant Haskell is.

      What do you not like about Perl 6? Simon has long complained about the size of the core. Abigail has pretty much dismissed Perl 6 because of significant whitespace. What is your beef? Aside from more transperancy in funding (I assume you are alluding to the funding thread from a while ago with some of your comments) what don't you like about Perl 6?

      If your issue is that you don't like @Larry's decisions then I'll be the one to say: you don't have to. Maybe Perl 6 won't get your mind share - maybe Ruby or Python will fit you better. Or maybe you will stick with Perl 5. It's only a tool. Use the one that works for you. If you give it a chance (and you can give it a chance right now thanks to lamdacamels - and when I knock lamda the ultimate I am knocking a certain attitude that is not shared by all - my thanks to shapr and others who have been working on PUGS) maybe you'll find that the tool really has improved.

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