Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
Gordon Scott wrote: I'd definitely agree that coder is more relevant than the language when it comes to readability. I agree - and would like to add that perl has the stigma of being a web tool when it is used by various orgs as part of business critical systems. My employer collects data from telecoms switches - and reconfigures said switches - with perl's help. I like the way that you can use the POD to encapsulate tests, WSDL etc. Having worked with a wide range fo languages from BCPL, C, through to Ada I like the flexibility and *responsibility* perl gives you. I have helped train junior members of staff and insisted that they roll both pod, stub code and tests before starting to code the real application. In almost all cases this has worked. I was also one of the first perl clinic medics and have seen some truly terrible professional perl written by companies that should know better. Jacqui -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
2008/10/16 Jacqui Caren [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Having worked with a wide range fo languages from BCPL, C, through to Ada I like the flexibility and *responsibility* perl gives you. Oh kindred spirit! I don't think I've ever come across another BCPL user before. (And people talk about *Perl* as being idiosyncratic...) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
its about half-eight and i've been coding all the night since about half-eight lastnite. not in Perl though, in javascript. its been event handlers and debugging largely. the more i learn of this language the more i see some similarity with Perl. have to say though, javascript has its place and is most marvelous for what it can do, but Perl is still a swiss army chainsaw. i wish browsers had perl interpreters in them :) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
2008/10/15 Isaac Close [EMAIL PROTECTED]: its about half-eight and i've been coding all the night since about half-eight lastnite. not in Perl though, in javascript. its been event handlers and debugging largely. the more i learn of this language the more i see some similarity with Perl. have to say though, javascript has its place and is most marvelous for what it can do, but Perl is still a swiss army chainsaw. i wish browsers had perl interpreters in them :) I had one miserable experience long ago with JavaScript (*) - a fixed price 3 month contract that took six months B-( Been a happy bunny with Perl for years since then. Love it because it's such a fun language to work with, and it's quick, and you can just keep on learning new stuff about it. Like that mountain in a book by Rudy Rucker you can look back and see what a long way you have come, and still see what a huge edifice there is ahead of you B-) Oh, and the resource network behind Perl is second to none (IMO) (*) - well, DreamWeaver+JavaScript actually. And the client didn't know what he wanted. So not all JS's fault... -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
On Wed, October 15, 2008 09:51, Victor Churchill wrote: 2008/10/15 Isaac Close [EMAIL PROTECTED]: its about half-eight and i've been coding all the night since about half-eight lastnite. not in Perl though, in javascript. its been event handlers and debugging largely. the more i learn of this language the more i see some similarity with Perl. have to say though, javascript has its place and is most marvelous for what it can do, but Perl is still a swiss army chainsaw. i wish browsers had perl interpreters in them :) I had one miserable experience long ago with JavaScript (*) - a fixed price 3 month contract that took six months B-( Javascript is fine for simple stuff, but for any large application I'd much rather have a strongly typed and compiled language, with good debugger and IDE support. -- Be seeing you,http://www.glendale.org.uk Sam. xmpp:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
The learning curve so far has been relatively steep, but once through the Llama book and practicing with small scripts now after several months slowly picking my way through the syntax I can read it and make subroutines work and play with functions, manipulate context and regex's. Coding is much smoother than in Bash and for the approx. 600 lines I have just written Bash would have become too cumbersome. I really like the warnings and use of strict pragma, the feedback has been understandable and very decipherable for debugging. I also like the syntax, it's easy on the eye, curly, and lends itself to readability and fits in well with my C knowledge. I'll probably be the only one who says this, but I'm not a perl fan. As a replacement for something like bash, I think perl is a great thing. However for applications I hate perl! It is far to easy to write perl code that is impossible to read, and some of those magic perl tricks can make it even worse! There are so many nasty horrible things you can do with perl, and far to many people use them ;) (usually all of them at once if they possibly can!) I have had horrible experiences of trying to use, maintain and extend a very large testing system written entirely in perl, the thing was a nightmare. For a quick script, especially those requiring parsing of log files etc. perl is wonderful but I would never use perl to writing something that was important or large or intended to be maintained and expanded on in the future. I think perl is a good tool, just often mis-used for things where it really isn't the best tool for the job. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
On Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 20:13:31 +0100, Stephen Rowles wrote: As a replacement for something like bash, I think perl is a great thing. Agreed. However for applications I hate perl! It is far to easy to write perl code that is impossible to read, and some of those magic perl tricks can make it even worse! There are so many nasty horrible things you can do with perl, and far to many people use them ;) (usually all of them at once if they possibly can!) Every time I hear this complaint I think of myself. I say exactly the same thing about the majority of PHP code I touch - but that is probably because I'm cleaning up security holes. Honestly I don't understand why Perl has this reputation. It is possible to do clever tricks in any environment interesting enough to be useful. Similarly a bad coder will be a bad coder regardless of implementation language. I could give examples of bad PHP, bad C, bad C++, and many more without too much effort. Similarly things that are tricks to some people are idiomatic expressions to others. (e.g. the first time a saw Duff's Device in C, or the temp-free XOR swap trick in C.) I think perl is a good tool, just often mis-used for things where it really isn't the best tool for the job. I think junior developers are good, but often mis-used for applications which later become important .. Steve -- http://www.steve.org.uk/ -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:13:31 +0100 (BST), [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I'll probably be the only one who says this, but I'm not a perl fan. You won't (I'm not a perl fan). I've never really worked out exactly why, but it just doesn't gel with me. Assembler, C, Python I'm happy with; Bash always feels a bit contrived once you start doing anything at all complex; PHP is fine, but after Python I just find the semicolons and braces irritating. All that said, I will hand it to CPAN, which I think is good. Keith -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Why I like Perl
Every time I hear this complaint I think of myself. I say exactly the same thing about the majority of PHP code I touch - but that is probably because I'm cleaning up security holes. I have to say I would say the same thing about PHP, in my opinion it suffers from many of the same problems as Perl. Honestly I don't understand why Perl has this reputation. It is possible to do clever tricks in any environment interesting enough to be useful. Similarly a bad coder will be a bad coder regardless of implementation language. My opinion comes from having spent the best part of 2 years having to work with it on a regular basis on a large internal company system. While I agree that a bad coder will write bad code in any language there are some languages that make it much harder to write bad code than others. Both PHP and Perl suffer in their OO implementation in that it only makes it look like OO, making it far too easy for people to access the underlying code which then makes for brittle systems when they do. And of course there is nothing you can do to stop them, unlike other languages that provide better encapsulation. People will always do the wrong thing because they don't know better, are under time pressure, or even because they think it's the right thing. If your language provides tools to prevent people make bad short cuts, it leads to better code in the long run. And that is especially important in large projects with multiple developers. I think perl is a good tool, just often mis-used for things where it really isn't the best tool for the job. I think junior developers are good, but often mis-used for applications which later become important .. junior developers are usually supervised, so you can lay the blame at the more senior people's door for not keeping check on them. You can't do that with Perl :) But more seriously, if you want to write a large enterprise system, don't do it in Perl it was never designed or intended to be used for that sort of thing. On the other hand, if you want to quickly parse a log file to look for errors, don't use C because it would be much quicker and easier, and more flexible to write it in Perl. My main beef is that Perl, which is a scripting language, should be used for situations that are well suited to scripting languages. I am a great believer in the right tool for the right job and while perl is a great tool, it isn't the right one for every job, despite what some people think ;) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
