> > PHP and Python are somewhat better,...
>
> PHP? Joking right? PHP's OO implementation is GROTESQUE.
As a multiply wounded veteran of the LOOPS project back in the Dawn of Time
and having written WAY too much Smalltalk, I generally find that OO
programming is usually oversold and is a cheap way to avoid thinking about
data structures, but there are problems where OO programming is the right
answer, and having tools to do that kind of thinking is a useful thing.
As you reference below, Perl's use of $/@/*, etc is just plain hard to
follow, and the basic language syntax is not what I would call
straightforward if you were approaching it in a vacuum. Yes, it's completely
comprehensible if you're familiar with Bourne or csh scripting, but I don't
think much of those "languages" either.
Let's be clear: Perl is a very useful tool. It would be more useful TO ME if
it were less syntactically ugly. I use it. I don't particularly like it. It
has a unfinished, inelegant feel -- like not taking the bark off your axe
handle - it works and may improve your grip, but it often causes undesirable
splinters and other side effects. Really good tools feel like an extension
of your thought, and do and express exactly that thought without additional
noise. I find all three (Perl, PHP, Python) to be excessively discordant.
YMMV.
I
> mean I use
> it, its great for doing Q&D web work, but better than perl? Ok it
> cleaned up the $/@/*/[]/()/{} mess, but it did it by forcing a one-one
> correspondence between a variable name and a data structure. UGH....
> [...]
> Well, waaay back when we had an intern (nephew of the CEO no less) who
> we did just that and said here's a file we need cleaned up. (hey, I
> wasn't his super). Shortly thereafer the system started to run
> horribly slowly... turned out he had learned just enough
> rexx and xedit
> macros to make rexx build a rexx/xedit macro, open the file in xedit,
> change ONE line and close it... against a 40k line file. Guy wasn't
> dumb, and you can learn Rexx quickly, but learning quick is
> not the same
> as learning right.
Yet more proof that idiots can write badly planned Fortran in any language.
Obvious idiocy aside, though, the point of REXX was to be immediately useful
to people with all levels of programming skill without requiring them to
necessarily develop extensive programming skills to get simple tasks done.
It does that admirably.
Unfortunately, the mainstream community passed REXX by years ago. Done is
done -- nothing we can do about that now.
