Re: [FWP] Perl Moral Support

[Tom Rathborne <tomr@aceldama.com>]

Kevin;

On Wed, Mar 15, 2000 at 04:57:29PM -0800, Kevin Cureton wrote:
> How does one counter statements like this:
> > Python might be a good choice to replace both Perl and Bourne
> > shell for most scripting. (Perl is still a great language for
> > small text-processing tasks.) 

Did this come from some random cow orker or from management?

> I find it really frustrating because they refuse to learn Perl, yet
> they are more than happy to bash on it.

The Python/Perl thing sounds a bit to me like Esperanto/English:
    "Try this new language, it will solve all your problems."
    "Sure, this new thing was designed from the ground up to be safe
    and easy to learn... but I _like_ my language in which TMTOWTDI!"

Take this article for example:
    http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
Now, I went to school with Paul for a few years, so let's just say
that the tone of this article made it obvious to me that this wasn't
_another_ Paul Prescod. An exceedingly nice fellow, but stubborn,
pedantic, and quite difficult to argue with.

Of course, Paul doesn't even cede a bit of "Perl is still a great
language for..." in his article. He says that Perl is a victim of
"poor design". All fairly standard criticisms. I think it's fair to
say that Perl requires a little bit more investment for full grokking,
but not a lot. I believe that an undisciplined programmer can write
bad code in any language. A restrictive language is no substitute for
discipline.

Paul writes:
    I am not entirely naive: Computer programming is hard. It is
    precisely because it is hard that there is no excuse for adding
    artificial obstacles like modern languages rooted in the idioms of
    dead languages, and adding syntaxes so complex that humans cannot
    keep them in their head. 

As much as I appreciate the good-clean-CS-theory approach of Python, I
think it's a crock - I'm with Larry Wall on the natural-language end
of things. IMHO, programming's also supposed to be _fun_ and _crazy_
and _expressive_. Take this funkadelic constructor, from the crazy
category. Don't ask why:

    sub new {
        my ($class, $db, $key, $value) = @_;
        my ($subclass, $cl);

        if (defined $key and defined $value) {
            $subclass = ClassLookup($key, $value, 'subclass');
            $class .= '::' . $subclass;
        } elsif (defined $key) {
            $subclass = $key;
            $class .= '::' . $subclass;
        } else {
            $subclass = $class;
            $subclass =~ s/^.*::([^:]+)$/$1/;
        }

        if (exists $classes{$subclass})
            my $self = [@{$classes{$subclass}}];
            $self->{'db'} = $db;
            return bless $self, $class;
        }

        return undef;
    }

Anyways, some possible responses:

"Why?"
    They must have a reason.

"Try Perl, you'll like it"
    It seems to me that Python has a more welcoming face than Perl -
    cleaner syntax, less ways to do it, and so on. However, I don't
    see much of a difference once you get inside the language - aside
    from perhaps philosophy. If I need to get hard-code into Python,
    I'll just sit down and solve a problem in it. The same can be said
    for Perl. Just sit these people down and show them how it works.

"I quit"
    Hey, if you really want to write in Perl, go somewhere else.

> There are even a few people who don't consider me a "real"
> programmer since I don't spend my days writing C (mainly because I
> prefer to not bash my head on the wall).

Now, that's just arrogance. Perl is a real, full-featured programming
language which beats C hands-down (in programmer efficiency and
sometimes running speed) for everything except the low-level systems
and bit-twiddling work where C shines.

> I just need some moral support. I enjoy my fun times with Perl and
> will continue to do so. I am just tired of people who don't get
> it....

Hey, if PDI happens to have a position for a Canadian
Perl/mod_perl/DBI/Postgres/Linux hacker/admin who's permanently two
courses short of a Bachelor's degree, never stops smiling, has a bit
of experience in asset management, and is a SIGGRAPH-attending
graphics geek on his vacation, I'd be happy to provide moral support
in person.

Cheers,

Tom

-- 
--    Tom Rathborne    tomr@aceldama.com
--                     http://www.aceldama.com/~tomr/
--    "All that glitters is not gold; all that wander are not lost."

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