"Lots of folk using it because it's the new-and-shiny rather than it being necessarily the best solution"
How do you know what is in people's head? I assert that lots of folk are using perl because it's comfortable to them rather than it being the best solution.
The difference between computer science and software engineering is Software engineering is real work for the real world. Often the constraints are money, time, resources.
So demands of a software project in the real world are very different than the academia. Although you can argue that Lisp is far more a better language than Perl, based on some parameters you wish to evaluate. Others might have totally different parameters, for example in terms of mere usability and pace of getting things done, Perl will fare better than Lisp.
While evaluating two technologies it is really important to define the parameters you wish to evaluate them upon. Without that we are just comparing Apples and Oranges and then arguing that nutrition on one isn't better than the other. Unless we define who needs an Apple and who needs an Orange for what reasons, we won't be able to say which is better than what for what purposes.
There fore comfort is really a subjective term. For a professor sitting in a university with endless time at his disposal Lisp will make the perfect and most comfortable language. But me sitting on P1 ticket assigned to me, and given 45 minutes to provide with solution has no other option but to use Perl. In other news I just have a weekend to hack up a automation or produce a quick prototype. You know what language I'm going to use, Its Perl.
Not because I hate Lisp or I'm uncomfortable. Its just there is no other option.
You said it yourself, comfort is a subjective term. So why do you talk as if Lisp were objectively more complicated. If I'm familiar with Lisp but have no clue about Perl I don't need to be a university professor with endless time to choose Lisp over Perl every time. To me, Perl looks vastly more complicated than Lisp. I believe you'd find that if you'd know Lisp like you do Perl you'd be at least as productive as you're in Perl.
To me, Perl looks vastly more complicated than Lisp. I believe you'd find that if you'd know Lisp like you do Perl you'd be at least as productive as you're in Perl.
As somebody who loves both Lisp and Perl I'd probably say you'd be as productive (unless you were sitting in a domain that one language or the other was a better fit for). Well - apart from CPAN and the testing infrastructure. And the editor/IDE support is worse unless you're already an emacs person... but those are just coz Clojure is young.
I'm thoroughly sick of the Lisp == academic == hard myth. It's just nonsense. I've taught newbie devs Lisp and Perl in the past and both groups seem to take it on at about the same pace.
>>I believe you'd find that if you'd know Lisp like you do Perl you'd be at least as productive as you're in Perl.
No,
And this is probably the reason why Lisp never took off post the appearance of C based languages. This is also why there are so many languages, because there are that many use cases for them. Denying the existence of a problem doesn't offer a solution. I can build anything quickly merely by using CPAN modules, I can manipulate strings and do all the text magic real quickly in Perl. That's not the same case with Lisp.
What you are saying is something like this. One guy wants reach from point A to B. He can either run or go in a car. You can argue that if he practices enough he can run as fast as the car, sure he can. But there is 0 logic in subjecting your legs to that kind of a torture, while all you need to learn is how to drive a car.
Now don't tell me that going from point A to B itself is wrong and he should be going to C instead.
You did read the very next sentence when I talked about my abandoning one Clojure solution for exactly this reason?
I love Clojure to death. It's excellent. But there are lots of folk like me who are just gasping to go play with production Lisp when other solutions would probably be better.
Not saying there aren't many great real-world uses for Clojure. Look at the stuff Datomic are doing for example... but I see lots of folk (myself included) spending two weeks tweaking Clojure stuff, dealing with warm-up timing issues for the JVM, etc. when we should probably just chuck something together with Sinatra and get the job done :-)
I assert that lots of folk are using perl because it's comfortable to them rather than it being the best solution.
How do you know what is in people's head? I assert that lots of folk are using perl because it's comfortable to them rather than it being the best solution.