Re: perl

[prev] [thread] [next] [lurker] [Date index for 2006/12/26]

From: Yoz Grahame
Subject: Re: perl
Date: 09:28 on 26 Dec 2006
On 12/26/06, Aaron J. Grier <agrier@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
>
> > Are you proposing that programming languages should be rigid and
> > unsuitable for a wide range of tasks?
>
> I propose nothing of the sort.
>
> I propose that perl's generality tends to cause reimplementation of many
> wheels, even if CPAN (or perl's builtins) contain well known "best-
> practices" implementations.
>
> moreso, I propose that perl's "there's more than one way to do it"
> slogan encourages unnecessary reimplementation, and perl's generality
> encourages application of perl to problem spaces where it is not well
> suited.

... while still being surprisingly shit at problem spaces which it
should absolutely rule. For example: web applications. It's just file
access, text handling and database interfaces. Perl in a Nutshell!

Perl 5 is sucky in many ways, but even so, it should have completely
owned the web app domain. All that was needed was just a little extra
work to provide a nice environment to ease the absolute beginner into
web app building. It even had a head start over Java, ASP and PHP,
none of which were remotely as good. Face it, to lose the space to
something as horrific as PHP, you'd have to *really* fuck up.

Fortunately for PHP, the Perl community picked up that challenge and
went the extra mile in fucking up spectacularly. They didn't just drop
the ball; they cloned the ball a hundred different times and then
threw it wildly all over the place, mostly up into trees. Then they
said the whole ball game was beneath them and mocked the very idea
that it was a problem space worth working in. When they eventually got
back into it, the first thing they said was that there still weren't
enough balls.

Seriously, there is no bigger indictment of Perl and its community
that I can think of than the fact that PHP won.
Barman! Hate for EVERYONE!

-- Yoz

Generated at 22:02 on 27 Dec 2006 by mariachi 0.52