Todd, IMO, Perl can be made to look at least as inscrutable as APL.
But there's nothing intrinsic in the language that forces you to write code that can't be understood. It is unfortunate that some practitioners love to write concise (i.e., difficult to understand) code, especially trying to fit it all on one line. Good Perl code should have lots of comments and clear structure, just like any other language which can be written so it can be easily understood. Nothing like having to go back to code you wrote 4 years ago at 3 am with no comments, to encourage good writing style. Just my 2 cents. Carl Friedberg [email protected] (212) 798-0718 www.esb.com The Elias Book of Baseball Records 2015 Edition -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ToddAndMargo Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 12:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Modula 2? On 07/01/2015 03:23 AM, David Sommerseth wrote: > On 01/07/15 04:25, toddandmargo wrote: >> >> >> ---- On Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:41:41 -0700 *Konstantin Olchanski >> <[email protected]>* wrote ---- >> >> On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 06:59:29PM -0700, ToddAndMargo wrote: >> > >> > Is Modula2 available for SL 6 and 7? >> > >> >> pascal -> modula-2 -> oberon -> java -> go >> >> >> Maybe I should just give up and learn Perl > > These days Python and Perl are pretty safe languages which usually is > part of most basic Linux installations. If you extend it to the BSD > family, Perl is safest. > > However Python most likely have an easier learning curve than Perl. > Both languages are, IMHO, good alternatives. But I generally find > Python code much easier to to read. Performance wise, they can both > perform very well. > > If you have no Python experience at all, I can recommend this book: > <http://www.diveintopython.net/> > > I have found that the biggest issue I have with Perl is folks trying to cram the sun, the moon, and stars all on to one line. I much prefer to break things up into several line to make them as self documenting as possible. But at least I can figure Perl out most of the time when I see it. I have a harder time with C and I know I shouldn't
