On Wed, 16 May 2001, Nathan Torkington wrote:
> Dave Storrs writes:
> > < SARCASM=EXTREME>
>
> Everyone, please try to stop the downhill descent of the conversation.
> This is not just Dave, but others in the thread too.
For the record, the original post in this sequence came from David
Grove, not from me (David Storrs). My response to David was an attempt at
*preventing* a downhill descent...which is why Simon's comment, which came
off feeling abrasive to me, bothered me. You're right; I should have
refrained from sarcasm and simply asked Simon to please not treat my
concerns so dismissively.
> It sounds like the concern is that each new version of Perl adds
> features, which programmers use. To be able to maintain or extend
> code, you need to know those features. Thus, the core knowledge for
> survival in Perl, is ever-growing.
This is what I understood to be David Grove's point (David, please
correct me if I have misunderstood). I don't know if I agree with this (I
also may not have the background to answer it, since I didn't come on
until 5.x), but I do feel, as I said before, that the language is
sufficently large that it is hard to hold in one's head and that making it
significantly larger would be a cause for concern. Other people may
disagree with me on this; it's only my opinion.
> In some ways I agree with this. In particular, the growing number of
> modules with an OO interface means that knowing how to use objects is
> more and more important.
This is true, but it could be taken as a counterargument...if
there is a growing number of OO modules, that is because a growing number
of Perl programmers are accustomed to, and make use of, OO techniques.
[single programmer doesn't need advanced features, teams are not used for
solving small problems so it is reasonable that they need advanced stuff]
> So I guess I don't see it as that big a problem. Am I missing
> something?
Well...I'm not sure my concerns are well enough defined to be
convincing, but I'll try to lay them out:
1) One of the great strengths of Perl is that its learning curve
is very shallow but very long. Adding more stuff to the language makes
the curve steeper, because you need to hold more in your head as you learn
it.
2) If the language is so big that you can't hold all of its
features in your head, then those extra features might as well not exist.
Now, after all of the above discussion, I should just say that I'm
not convinced that Perl is too big (I think it's _big_, which is different
from _too_ big), or that anything that we are adding is going to _make_ it
too big. I'm simply trying to point out one side of the argument.
Dave Storrs
