OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/26652/Celebrating_25_years_of_Perl Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 24 May 2013 09:38:27 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Heh http://www.osnews.com/thread?546782 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546782 I would have to agree wit the 'write only' sentiment. When I was messing around with it, I'd stay up til 2am or so writing code, and when I looked at it the next day, it looked like modem line noise on a terminal screen ;)

Another gripe I had with it was that the Windows extensions seemed a bit janky and poorly documented. Of course, that was years ago, so I'm sure it has improved since then.

However, I have since switched to AutoIt on Windows. It certainly doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Perl does, but for most of the stuff I was doing (usually automating some GUI task), it seemed to do about 98% of everything I needed it to do, and compiles to very small executables. It has been my primary scripting language for years now.Edited 2013-01-01 20:39 UTC Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WorknMan) Comments RE: Heh http://www.osnews.com/thread?546785 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546785 That "write only" part says more about you as a programmer than the language in question. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (crpjssssssssssssssss) Comments Comment by rain http://www.osnews.com/thread?546787 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546787 I used to be heavily into perl scripting back in the day. Built a lot of web apps with it.
Then I switched to PHP about 9 years ago and haven't touched Perl since. I still preferred Perl as a language, but PHP offered much more convenience in the web development department.

I partly agree with the "write only" description. Perl will allow you to write some pretty messy code. But it's really as clean as you make it. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rain) Comments Hate it http://www.osnews.com/thread?546796 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546796 I wish perl would just die. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tuaris) Comments RE: Hate it http://www.osnews.com/thread?546797 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546797 I will tell you something i read a long time ago about Doom (the game) but with Perl in mind.

Perl shall never die!, only the programmers. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (KrustyVader) Comments a Joy to code, a bummer to maintain http://www.osnews.com/thread?546799 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546799 Perl -- the ultimate fun for the geek coder, the ultimate nightmare for the drudge maintainer. I'd say if you have an IT project where PHP or Python will do the job, you'd be better off with them. Nevertheless, I sure have enjoyed Perl programming. Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (benali72) Comments God no http://www.osnews.com/thread?546803 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546803
Doesn't matter which OS you're running, somewhere in there, your system depends on Perl to get stuff done.


There's not much Perl in Windows.

I also actively avoided any and all Perl in Syllable.

I've always found Perl weird. Its original goal was to be a "glue" language, but we already had that (shell scripts). So instead it's grown into this giant monolithic all-singing, all-dancing blob of CPAN modules that isn't really the least but UNIXy in any real sense.

That in turn has lead people to try and use it as a real language. The MTA written entirely in Perl from a previous jobs still makes me wretch a little bit... Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vanders) Comments Compiler Warnings http://www.osnews.com/thread?546807 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546807 I felt I had reached a new level of geekiness when I sniggered to see gcc compiling perl with the -Wall flag. Wed, 02 Jan 2013 02:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hughobrien) Comments Perl http://www.osnews.com/thread?546824 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546824 You have listed all main reasons I've started using Perl back in late '90s. Yes, it's a perfect glue code. Yes, we have shell scripts but they are a fragmented, incompatible, unportable, inefficient mess. There *is* Perl on Windows and for the most part it is just - Perl.

After a brief experience of writing shell scripts on Linux and trying to deploy them on Solaris I took Perl and it has never fail me since. It is a weird and ugly language but it does its job extremely efficiently (easy to write non-trivial scripts) and is very portable and maintainable. Most of my scripts from a decade before still work and can be used on every single machine I have access to.

Nowadays, I also prefer Python - it's simply a better designed language. But it isn't as reliable and robust as Perl. Primarily because it's being rewritten over and over. This means that virtually all Python 2.2 and 2.4 installations (the only versions I can find in the office) are almost unusable. Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ndrw) Comments RE[2]: Heh http://www.osnews.com/thread?546876 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546876
That "write only" part says more about you as a programmer than the language in question.


I guess so, especially since I am not a programmer ;) Just someone who needs to write scripts from time to time.

But I have observed that blaming the programmer seems to be a defense mechanism that pundits use to defend a particular language (Java also comes to mind here). But with languages like AutoIt and Python, I can write code that I can actually read the next day, even with my current skills (or lack thereof). Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WorknMan) Comments RE: Perl http://www.osnews.com/thread?546982 http://www.osnews.com/thread?546982
Yes, we have shell scripts but they are a fragmented, incompatible, unportable, inefficient mess.


I can't tell if you're talking about shell scripts or perl scripts.

But it isn't as reliable and robust as Perl.


I think you mean backwards compatible. I've never had an reliability or robustness problems. On the other hand, I haven't used 2.2 and 2.4 since the mid 2000's.

This means that virtually all Python 2.2 and 2.4 installations (the only versions I can find in the office) are almost unusable.


2.2 and 2.4? Seriously? Last 2.2 release was almost 10 years ago. I'm afraid you'r problem is not with python, it's with the company being stuck in the 1990's ;)
That said, it's perfectly possible to write code that runs on 2.2 as well as 2.7/3. I wouldn't WANT to do it but it can be done.Edited 2013-01-03 04:20 UTC Thu, 03 Jan 2013 04:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments Comment by lucas_maximus http://www.osnews.com/thread?547090 http://www.osnews.com/thread?547090 Tend to use it for the odd dirty script on my machine, but I can never imagine it being used to build anything large even though it is. Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lucas_maximus) Comments