[sf-perl] Stack Overflow Blog: "Why Perl is still relevant in 2022"

Sun Jul 10 12:07:30 PDT 2022

Myself, I'd make the point that the while the perl examples he
presents are primitive by modern standards, they *do* still work for
him, which is one of perl's strengths: a respect for backwards
compatibility.

On 7/9/22, Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org> wrote:
> hi,
>
> On Sat, 9 Jul 2022 00:54:45 -0700
> Sean Dodger Cannon <el.dodgero at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Friday, 8 July 2022, Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org> wrote:
>>
>> > Hi Mr. Dodger!
>>
>>
>> Hi Ms. or Mr. Schlomi!
>>
>
> it is "Mr." and "Shlomi" - https://www.shlomifish.org/meta/FAQ/
> .
>
>> Moose and Moo are not that bad, IMO, do not have a prohibitive overhead,
>> and
>> > make writing Perl OOP code easier and cleaner:
>> >
>> > https://perl-begin.org/topics/object-oriented/
>>
>>
>> Uh, Ms. or Mr. Fish: I *know about them*. Nothing in my message indicated
>> I
>> was in any way unfamiliar with them.
>>
>> But in my opinion, they *don’t* make writing perl OO code easier and
>> cleaner. They make writing perl OO code stupider and arbitrarily restrict
>> it. And my Perl *was clean in the first place* because I’m anal about
>> keeping it readable. I don’t golf.
>>
>> Isn’t it at all conceivable to you (or anyone else drinking the moose
>> “modern perl” flavor-aid) that there are people out here who know
>> perfectly
>> well what it is and just *don’t like it*?
>>
>> Not liking it doesn’t mean we don’t understand it or don’t know what it
>> is.
>>
>> It just means we aren’t buying in to all this Moo* crap.
>>
>> OOP predates java and Moose is very different from java's OOP:
>> >
>>
>> It was an obvious figure of speech. I was making fun of (^Moo(se)?).
>> Again,
>> I don’t need a condescending link to tell me what I already know about
>> something I already assessed and decided is useless, wasteful crap.
>>
>> I don’t like it, I’m not going to like it, I don’t use it, I’m not going
>> to
>> use it, and I’m very unhappy that you moose lodge zealots have convinced
>> all the pointy-haired managers that those of us who roll our eyes at that
>> rubbish are somehow less talented or capable because it makes it harder to
>> get jobs when a random shibboleth has been added for no reason. It was a
>> dick move on y’all’s part.
>>
>> Quite honestly, I think that if you or anyone actually NEEDS Moo/Moose to
>> “make writing Perl OOP code easier and cleaner”, that if you actually
>> thought Perl OO programming was *at all* hard and somehow needed that
>> simplified for you, and that if you can’t write clean, readable,
>> self-documenting code without a moose holding your hand, then maybe it’s
>> not *me* who should be looked down on as the inferior programmer. Y’know?
>>
>
> Moo provides enough hooks to write dirtier code if needed. And there's also
> the
> stoic method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L4qauTiCY4 .
>
>>
>> > Honestly, while I still love and use Perl 5, I also like Python 3 a lot:
>> >
>> > * https://www.shlomifish.org/meta/FAQ/thought_you_were_a_Perl_guy.xhtml
>> >
>> > Python is very easy to learn, and some people were able to tweak py code
>> > just
>> > by opening an existing codebase in a text editor.
>> >
>>
>> From what I’ve seen, yes, python is very easy to learn for people who
>> *don’t already know how to program*.
>>
>> It is *not* one of the easier languages to transition to for a developer
>> already fluent in any pascal-descendant language. It honestly comes off
>> like someone described the idea of a programming language to someone who
>> had never used one but was clever enough to come up with one from the
>> description. Kudos to that, sure, but trying to learn it when fluent in a
>> curly-brace language is like trying to learn Japanese when fluent in a
>> Romance language.
>>
>> Is Japanese sensible? Sure. Is it strict? Absolutely. Is it efficient?
>> Totally. Is it precise? Way more than English for sure. Is it anything
>> like
>> a Romance language? Not by leagues and fathoms.
>>
>> A perl programmer can pick up java, javascript, C, C++, C#, Objective C,
>> and numerous other languages descended from pascal easily.
>>
>> But to jump from this paradigm to something completely weird like Python
>> is
>> actually harder than just learning Python in the first place from scratch.
>>
>> Just for instance, the thing that we call a “string literal” is, in
>> Python,
>> referred to as a “constant”. In Perl and other C/Pascal related languages,
>> if constants exist at all the term means an immutable variable. A variable
>> that can only by changed by re-assigning it (effectively overloading it).
>> It cannot be changed “in place”.
>>
>> Python doesn’t see this as anything special because that’s *all
>> variables*.
>> *Every* variable in Python is what Perl thinks of as a constant. Nothing
>> can be changed in place and the assignment operator is the only way to
>> alter that which is inside a variable (though at least you can go inside
>> the assorted structs, you’re still using assignment).
>>
>> So, in effect, they differ down to the level of actually disagreeing on
>> what the definitions of the words “constant” and “variable” are. I don’t
>> know if you can get more fundamentally different than that.
>>
>> Another factor is that there aren’t really tutorials or classes for python
>> that aren’t remedial for an advanced programmer of anything else. Throw in
>> that “we can’t even agree what constant means” problem and you have a
>> perfect storm recipe for disaster in trying to transition.
>>
>> A newbie will actually benefit from chapter upon chapter in O’Reilly’s
>> Learning Python on “what is a variable” and “what can you do with a
>> variable” and “what is a function” and so on. I’ve thumbed my way through
>> that book and gotten halfway in before anything seemed actually
>> instructional to an experienced programmer.
>>
>> So the solution should be “ok skip it, go to the meat”—except the constant
>> problem. I mean that “constant” problem. Just when you think things make
>> sense, it’s all “uhh WTF?” and you realise there’s some basic core concept
>> that’s just treated totally differently in Python but the details about
>> that are buried in the prior 300 pages you just skipped and you don’t know
>> where.
>>
>> So what do you do? BS? Fake it ‘til you make it and slog through? Or go
>> back and read a decent sized novel’s worth of tedious, boring, almost
>> insultingly remedial crap just to try to get at the one bigger buried in
>> there you need?
>>
>> It would be like learning Icelandic and then realising you don’t know what
>> “þ” means but having to dig through 200-300 pages on the alphabet you
>> already know because you don’t know where that would go in the alphabet
>> and
>> it’s not in an alphabetical order you recognise anyway. You want to learn
>> a
>> language but you’re stuck because you don’t know 1 or 1 of the ABCs, even
>> though you know the rest. Quite a þ in the side, truly.
>>
>> Anyway, literally anyone who isn’t special needs can tweak python *or any
>> other code at a higher level than assembly* just by opening an existing
>> source code file in an editor, even if most people are afraid to do so. So
>> of course that’s true.
>>
>
> i dont really believe in "knowing BASIC / C / perl / Fortran / etc. cripples
> your mind forever":
>
> *
> https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/fortunes/show.cgi?id=quora-learning-to-drum-at-65
>
> *
> https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/philosophy/putting-cards-on-the-table-2019-2020/indiv-nodes/people-can-change.xhtml
>
> * https://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html/
>
>> That said, I already admitted I need to try to make myself fluent in the
>> ophidian language. Because as much as it pisses me off, there is one thing
>> Python can provide that Perl really just can’t anymore (especially me that
>> people who need baby talk Moose garbage hand-holding have convinced
>> everyone that people who *don’t* aren’t as good somehow):
>>
>> An income
>>
>
> good luck but note stand-up comedy here -
> https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Buffy/A-Few-Good-Slayers/indiv-nodes/prospects-of-fighting-the-pseudo-vampires.xhtml
>
>> —
>> Dodger
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Shlomi Fish       https://www.shlomifish.org/
> My Aphorisms - https://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html
>
> I don’t believe in Astrology, because I’m a Taurus, and Tauri never believe
> in
> Astrology.           — Source unknown
>
> Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - https://shlom.in/reply .
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