While I agree that those reasons count against Perl being used as a
primary language of instruction, there's another, IMO, larger reason.
It's the same reason why "Mastering Algorithms with Perl" fails. The
language itself is too rich; you continually have to side-step from
teaching formalisms to discuss syntax quirks, short-cuts, functions or
yet another module.
All these bells-and-whistles make that Perl is a great language, but that
doesn't mean it's a good tool to teach programming or formalisms with.
Java and C++ are equally convoluted. The fact that Perl
has the features doesn't mean that anyone has to teach
them. It's the difference between a Programming Intro
class and one on Perl Programming.
Left to nothing but scalars, math, and simple I/O Perl
is less complicated than the standard teaching languages.
--
Steven Lembark 2930 W. Palmer
Workhorse Computing Chicago, IL 60647
+1 8773 252 1080
