On 11/12/2013 12:41, Christian Walde wrote: > On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 11:16:25 +0100, Issac Goldstand > <mar...@beamartyr.net> wrote: > >> I was having a talk with an old buddy of mine last night... >> >> He asked "Remember when Perl used to be such a popular and useful >> language?" Without thinking I responded, "Wow, that was a long time >> ago" and then realized what I'd just said. >> >> So I have to join the heretics group :( >> >> Having said that, I still personally use Perl a lot, and like it, but I >> have to agree with the sentiment of "Why would I teach someone else >> Perl?" > > Unparalleled library ecosystem, unparalleled object system, to name two. > A more interesting question is: Why not? > > Another confusing post honestly. > > Do you actually believe that Perl isn't popular anymore, do you actually > believe it's not useful anymore? Or did you just say those things on > pure unthinking lizard brain reflex? Please introspect and expand. :) >
I think it came off the tongue as "pure unthinking lizard brain reflex". That by itself is still worth noting. I think maybe the question, as phrased is too generic. There might be many use-cases for teaching someone Perl. The unparalleled (let's say I agree for argument's sake. I don't really disagree, but I don't take CPAN's unique-and-awesomeness for granted these days) library ecosystem (very much a double edged sword - lots of the modules there suck) does make it really easy to do almost anything in Perl. And Perl can do a whole big range of stuff. But I think there are only two reasons to learn anything in life (programming or not). 1) It scratches your own itch 2) It scratches someone else's itch Putting reason one aside, because you can't argue with that (I would always be happy to teach someone something that they already feel is useful), we still have "someone else's itch". So the question then becomes who uses Perl today, that might have a itch that our "someone else" could scratch now or down the road... And that's not a conversation that needs rehashing. _______________________________________________ Perl mailing list Perl@perl.org.il http://mail.perl.org.il/mailman/listinfo/perl
