[prev] [thread] [next] [lurker] [Date index for 2003/09/16]
> I'm not; I keep saying that well-written Perl code is not difficult. Oh fiddlesticks. What you keep saying is that if you can't read well-written Perl code you don't know Perl. What I keep saying is that it's clearly too bloody hard to "know Perl" if that's the case. What you keep saying is that Perl's practically perfect for you. That's great, mate, but what's that got to do with this joint? To be precise: >>> That's kinda the point: Perl fits the way we think. If it >>> doesn't fit the way you think, I guess you shouldn't use it. This site is chockablock full of people who find themselves forced to use software they hate. Why should Perl get a free ride? > >Foreach, actually. In foreach, but not in any other context, if > >you change the temporary variable containing an element of an array > >you actually change the array. > Yes, this is well-documented, and used by just about everyone. So are the spelling rules for "ie" versus "ei". > >In English, it doesn't prevent communication if the rules are > >irregular. If I say "viri" or "virus" you understand what I mean. > >If you don't, you can ask me. You don't freak out if I say "verbing > >weirds language" or "you from context that can glork", and you > >hardly slow down for "You can eevn siwcth ltetrs ardoun and teh > >minneag siltl coems trohugh". > No, most of those cause significant problems for me. Obviously you don't "know English". > >The problem is, English is a completely insane thing to model a > >programming language on. > Your argument boils down to "I don't like working this way," but you state > your argument as "Perl was designed poorly." That's my only real problem > with what you are saying: it's dishonest. This is "hates-software.com", and one of the bits of software I hate is Perl. Everything I'm writing is predicated on that. So it's not bloody "dishonest", it's a bloody "opinion". It's not just my opinion, by the way, that Perl was not so much "designed" as "left to grow": that's pretty well documented. What's my opinion is that this is a Bad Thing, because it leads to unnecessary complexity and ambiguity. So far you've argued that I don't know it well enough, that you write clean code that I should have no problem with, and that lots of people use the well documented exceptions that I object to. That's bloody great, mate, honest, you're happy with Perl, have a great time with it. But if you want to actually explain why I'm WRONG for hating Perl because it's an ad-hoc pile of poorly integrated special cases, then tell me why that's a good thing, or tell me why it's not an ad-hoc etcetera after all. Last time someone did the latter they ended up telling me about a whole new set of obscure special cases I hadn't known about [1], so I think you're better off with the "it's a good thing that it's a mess" argument. There you only need to explain why the "rich syntax" is an advantage when the best examples of Perl code that I've found or that have been demonstrated to me strenuously avoid using the "rich syntax" in the same way that legal jargon restricts itself to a well-defined subset of English... and thus the author's freedom of expression would be in no wise diminished if the syntax was less rich. "Perl gives you rope". Joy. Lots of languages do. The good ones give you rope when you ask for it. Perl's a bloody rope pusher, mate. It hangs around playgrounds with coils of sisal and hemp under its trenchcoat and gives away free samples to kiddies. "Nobody uses ?...? regexes in general". You're really not helping me hate Perl any less, mate. Not only does it have screwed up syntax because someone needed it to do something useful, it's got screwed up syntax that nobody uses. [1] Not to mention that that's NOT the only problem with Switch. AND you're still missing the whole point of why any reflective language does a better job of encouraging expressive programming than Perl. Which is no reason for you not to like Perl, I hasten to add before you go ballistic again, but it shoots down the whole "expressive quality" argument as far as I'm concerned. [1] Oh look, there's one now.There's stuff above here
Generated at 14:02 on 01 Jul 2004 by mariachi 0.52