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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report
--Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
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What I learned writing PPI (Score:1)
Java has a simple structure, it's easy to parse. So the editors and toolchain can be made SO much more rich for Java than for Perl.
Then do extra checks at compile time, that we can't do.
They have the equivalent of strict and warnings on by default.
All of these checks are aimed at weeding out evil as early as possible, and managing it when it happens (exceptions).
Of course you can write evil at the level above where the toolchain ca
Re:What I learned writing PPI (Score:1)
Don't forget lackluster abstraction possibilities, a huge standard library, the mad rush to standardize on One Giant API To Do Things, and programming, configuration, and deployment mechanisms that emphasize Lots of Little Fiddly Bits .
The amount of damage you can do has some correlation to the amount of productivity you can achieve.
(There's probably a more profound point related to the idea that there are very few system
Re:What I learned writing PPI (Score:2)
Don't forget lackluster abstraction possibilities, a huge standard library, the mad rush to standardize on One Giant API To Do Things ...
And that's perhaps part of the reason why many seem to prefer Java. Yes, it can shackle programmer creativity, but then, it's harder to hang oneself while wearing shackles. If this analogy is valid, then it suggests that it really is safer for some (not all!) companies to pull the average Java programmer off the street instead of the average Perl programmer.
However
Re:What I learned writing PPI (Score:1)
Certainly not, but any perception program ought to be realistic about features of Perl as compared to other languages.
People criticize Perl for allowing people to write quick one-offs, yet that's an explicit design goal of the language! If people can do that productively, maybe Perl's easy to learn, especially for non-programmers. If Perl's easy to learn, maybe finding decent Perl programmers isn't as hard as it seems -- if y
Re:What I learned writing PPI (Score:2)
Somehow, I doubt that. I don't have any evidence as to why that would be false, but in my experience, that's not as true as it would seem.
Python, too, was designed to be easy to learn. And it seems that any decent programmer who tries to learn Python does. But Perl seems to evoke a viseral sense of distaste in many capable programmers. Python and Ruby, as languages of a similar vintage, do not engender that reaction. Perl is respected, but grudgingly so.
If I had to guess why Perl engenders such a pervasive distaste, it's because Perl is multiparadigmic. C++ and Common Lisp are also multiparadigmatic, and grudgingly respected in a similar fashion.
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