[rescue] flamewar question: Perl

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

Bill Bradford wrote:


> Okay, I know this is liable to generate a flame war.
> Tis good, we need more activity on the lists anyway.


Hey look, it worked!!!


> Is it worth my time to lern Perl? (er, "learn perl better
> than the little I know it already")?


Insofar as it's worth the time to learn anything new, I'd have to say
yes. I've read what everyone else wrote, but I'll just respond to you in
light of ther comments.

I've found perl to be enormously useful for what it's good for. It's an
incredibly easy way to manipulate data. I use it for all sorts of
things. Someone commented on the ten-line "magic", and they have a valid
point (though it could probably be done in one line too!) that it leaves
the next person to come along a horrible mess to deal with. But I think
that's the fault (or plan) of the coder, not the language. I comment my
code well, and try to give others the ability to follow the flow (and
myself too. You ever go back to your own code six months later and
wonder what the hell kind of drugs you must have been on?). It's perl,
and that means there are probably 37 ways to do whatever it is you're
trying to do. Some may be easier to read than others, and there's always
a supercryptic method, but if you intend to write clearly, it can be a
thing of beauty.

Modules are a whole other thing entirely. I usually find them to be
horribly written, as there doesn't seem to be any control over who can
submit what for general release. If I need a module and have the time,
I'll usually take it apart and rewrite it. The only time I use them
as-is is if there are dependencies that need to be fulfilled RIGHT NOW.
For my own scripts, though, I'd rather start fresh and recreate the
functionality from scratch.


> (so far, I havent had a *need* to learn it..)

Understood. And there'll probably never be a *need*. But use it once and
you'll see how easy it is.


> I've got all the ORA books (learning perl, programming perl,
> perl cookbook, etc) but have just never been able to get "into"
> any of them - without a driving reason to learn it, I end up
> putting the books down and not getting back into them for a
> while..


Me too. But I've got them on CD as well, and find it much easier to use
as a quick reference when coding. They're online (for my own *private*
use only obviously, so as not to violate any licenses) at
http://frop.nomonthly.com/oreilly. The search function doesn't work (and
I probably won't fix it) and there are parts missing, but all in all
it's an easy way to learn. When I know what I want to do, I find how.

On the whole, I'd have to say it's definitely worth learning. Most
people who don't like it complain about how cryptic it is. But again,
that's the coder, not the language.

All that said, I love it, and write most of my scripts in it.


---sambo
rambler