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> >> It's not that perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language > >> rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool > >> has ever done. > >> --Erik Naggum > >In other words, it's fragile and dangerous. > Yes, if by "other words" you mean "words that don't mean what the original > words meant." I'm sorry, but I can't come up with a reading of that sentence other than something like "using Perl safely requires more care, attention to detail, and knowledge of trivia than any other language or tool". I don't think that's actually true. C++, for example, probably has Perl beat in this area since it's got BOTH badly designed ad-hoc syntax AND buffer overflows. I understand the cowboy attraction of a complex language that "rewards idiotic behaviour in a way that no other language or tool has done". It's a common failing for techies to start to savor the esoteric natire of what they're working with, so you get comments like "UNIX is user-friendly, it's just picky about who it's friends are", and the whole BOFH pseudo-culture. That kind of attitude is even useful. It rewards the kind of concentration it takes to become knowledgable about a complex subject, and builds cameraderie among the initiated. BUT, it can also lead to people treating the difficulties that the uninitiated have as "personal problems" rather than something that should be reconsidered and if possible done away with. One of the GOOD things about the Perl community is that there are people who do recognise the problems, and so Perl 5 is a significant advance over Perl 4, and it looks like Perl 6 has a chance of being even better... if the rear-guard skirmishes I see now and again don't hold up the advance. This leads me to believe that eventually there will be a Perl I don't hate, and that would be a very very good thing. No doubt there will be Perl cowboys who despair over the loss of every jot and tittle of unnecessary obscurity, but most of them will end up happily using and defending the new language and complaining when they have to deal with old-school Perl 5 scripts.There's stuff above here
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