On Tue, 1 Jan 2008, rpattabi123 wrote: > > > > > > Here is my question, is it really worthwhile to look at Perl now? I > > > understand that different languages would induce different kind of > > > thinking about programming problem. But I would probably look at > > > Haskell, and/or Erlang for that purpose than Perl. > > >
No, if are working on a Ruby project. Yes, if you have existing PERL code to manage and ehance/develop. > > > So I am wondering what are the voids in Ruby that could be ably > filled > > > by Perl. The answer to this could motivate me to learn Perl. > > > > > > Your opinions welcome. > > > Here is my observation: "PERL programmer would typically *not* use perl debugger, i see many Ruby programmer's using the debugger". Using a debugger is good ! I tried an experiment two weekends ago, "What are the voids in PERL that could be ably filled by Ruby !" The killer app, so to speak of Ruby is "Ruby on Rails" (RoR). That's where most of the focus is and that's where most of the growth is ! To answer the question, i asked myself - "programmer portability" is the void filled in by Ruby. > looking for. I am not deciding between Perl and Ruby. I am already > sold out for Ruby. Then, you should continue with Ruby ! > > Please consider this. I already know Ruby to some extant. My regex > knowledge is limited but sufficient for my purposes so far, that any > basic pattern matching facility is > good enough for me. Ruby regex support is not bad either. Sure there is > something to learn from the way Perl solves some of the programming > problems. Here is my observation about PERL: . entire [simplicity - complexity] spectrum coverage . references to objects and back to references . tight shell-language integration (portable shell) . any new service is a module (eg. CGI, DBI etc) . closures-oriented thinking . automation tasks > > But should a Rubyist (or a novice rubyist) spend his spare time in > learning Perl, or should he better put that effort on something > radically different like Lua, Haskell, and stuff assuming market > demand is not a criteria? > There is no fun in being able to write 'hello world' in many languages. It is better to be the Paulo Coelho of Ruby or whatever language you choose to work with, ie. ship Open Source products ! > Sure perl is in my 'to-learn' list, but not at the beginning. Is there > a compelling reason to bring it up the list? > Yes, there are three very important reasons: . create awareness about Open Source software/products/languages that created a paradigm shift in the way we think about software and software construction. (think thought leadership) . PERL is a in-demand skill in industry, esp Product companies. (think jobs) . When companies know there is a focus/skill among techies in a particular city, they might want to open their centre in Hyderabad. (think AP) Appreciate the thought you put in while discussing the points. Please keep writing. thanks Saifi.
