Man. I really wish we didn't have language discrimination. Perl is just so fast to write and has such a sizeable ecosystem of modules, and such great docs, that I can produce any program in Perl faster than I can write it in Python, purely because it's more expressive in a smaller space and has fewer restrictions. But no team I'll ever be on in my life will agree to work with me on a Perl project, because everyone just "knows" Perl is taboo. People laugh at me when I suggest using it.
The best thing about Perl in comparison to Python is that programs written in Perl age very well. You can run decades old scripts without any updates, versioning and/or dependency hell or other headaches. Even better, also across platforms. I stopped using Python because of the anti-experiences with all that.
Was thinking that sounds strange, but that's because 90% of my Python is done in Django (which has excellent docs). Python's own documentation is horrible to read for some reason. Whenever I need to remind myself of how to use regexes in Python, it's the first place that comes up, followed by finding a tutorial elsewhere.
I’m with you there. I don’t hate Perl. I don’t think it’s taboo. I just can’t think of a scenario where I’d want to use it over another tool.
Perl was the first non-C language I wrote significant amounts of Unix code in. In particular, I wrote lots of web and server admin projects with it. I know Perl well enough to 1) appreciate why people still like using it, and 2) not want to use it myself.
I used to write in Perl 20 years ago. It started really nice, with well-structured code.
And then when I learned this and that, the code started to be more concise, to the point of being impossible to understand for the author (me) after a week.
I liked it though and I realize that this is not Perl's fault but mine. Still, giving too much power to less experienced devs without having them unlock some kind of experience badge is dangerous :)
Perl is a beautiful language. It’s fast. It’s stable. It’s expressive. What I really miss working with other languages is Perl’s documentation.
Bigots gonna bigot. Perl is an unorthodox language; Larry would probably prefer eclectic. It’s tough being the different kid. As paulg wrote, “The superficial demands of orthodoxy make it an inexpensive substitute for virtue. And that in turn is one of the reasons orthodoxy is so attractive to bad people. You could be a horrible person, and yet as long as you’re orthodox, you’re better than everyone who isn’t.”
Perl usually had excellent quality modules back when I was using it. Python (these days) has a mix of mostly good, but some bad. Javascipt just seems a shambles when I go there.
The thing is, they stayed the same, same 13 years old bugs, sometimes you can even see the author popping in saying he’ll take a look in February without narrowing it down to at least the quarter century said February is supposed to be in.
The usual ghost town with tumbleweed on its streets.
that's not just a perl problem. you may face the same issue with php and also any lesser known language, if only for different reasons. either way though, popularity wins
