[Techtalk] On Perl

[Jenn Vesperman]

On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 16:30, Kai MacTane wrote:

> I have come to accept that lots of people have trouble with the TMTOWTDI 
> aspects of Perl, but I don't really "get" that. Can someone explain it to 
> me? How is having multiple options difficult, or annoying, or 
> uncomfortable, or whatever? Heck, I obviously can't even see what it is 
> about the multiple options that's unwanted!

It amounts to 'what the #&*$@# does that string of line noise MEAN?' And
I'm sure my random swearing just then parses to -something- in Perl!

I literally cannot read a Perl program without constantly looking up
symbols. I'd be much happier with Perl if it _didn't_ have the various
forms of noun and verb modification, the innumerable $-whatever
symbols...

I can read C, python, or Java almost immediately, after having not done
anything in any of them for months. Perl is the sort of thing you have
to do constantly to remain fluent in. IMO.

I don't write in Perl because I would like to be able to come back to my
own code six months later and be able to read it. Or be able to
understand a page of someone else's code without having to have the Perl
pocket reference in my hand.

The 'more than one way to do it' .. well, I don't mind it terribly.
There's more than one way to walk an array in C, and as soon as we start
to get complex there's many ways to implement a binary tree!

But the multiple ways to do very basic things cut down on readability in
a language that already looks like line noise.


My opinion. I _know_ other people's opinions vary. I'm just trying to
explain how it is for me.


Jenn V.
-- 
    "Do you ever wonder if there's a whole section of geek culture 
        	you miss out on by being a geek?" - Dancer.

jenn at anthill.echidna.id.au     http://anthill.echidna.id.au/~jenn/