On 31/12/19 10:57 pm, Daniel Boyd wrote: > As one of the few remaining people out there who considers perl to be their > favorite language—starting to wonder if it’s just me and Larry Wall at this > point—I’d like to say that perl should stay in base on its merits, all the > perl-based system tools notwithstanding.
I coded a lot in Perl before moving onto PHP and other languages… the only time I've done lots with Java was when I was at university. Perl was definitely my first taste of coding for a Unix-like operating system, having previously been solely exposed to variants of BASIC prior (QBASIC, CA Realizer BASIC, VisualBASIC). (Sorry Dijkstra, some of us *do* move beyond that language.) C++ and Haskell were other languages I learned at university. C did feature in my lectures, but I don't consider two slides describing the syntax of "if", "for", and various variable data types as being "instruction". Had I not learned C++ or dabbled with C prior to uni, I'd be stuffed in the subjects that needed C knowledge. Python I had dabbled with, but only started using recently because of my current workplace. They needed a metering product, and the choices of language offered to me were Python and PHP; being a cron-based service doing lots of serial port I/O, I chose Python. These days I do lots in that language. I'd have chosen Perl5 at the time if it were on the table, there is nothing wrong with it, it is stable and mature. Just that it is no longer "trendy". That said, choosing a language because of its popularity is totally the wrong approach. It's a question of whether it is suitable for the job. Notably, are there libraries of sufficient quality that you can utilise to get the job you're after done quickly. Python has pypi. Perl has had CPAN for ages. Perl 6 will be a major change though, more disruptive than the Python2→3 mess was. So we may be in for some "fun" in the near future. -- Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL) I haven't lost my mind... ...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.
