[[rescue] flamewar question: Perl]

[joshua d boyd]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2001 at 08:51:19AM -0400, Ken Hansen wrote:
> I side with Dave McGuire on this - PERL is, um, not very intuitave IMHO.
> 
> I think my brain only handles ALGOL-inspired languages...

Functional and OO is nice (real nice, I think), but ultimately, the
machine is essentially an ALGOL machine.  Perl is nice for the occasional
string wizardry, but then you realize it is easy to use regexp's in
python, or that there is a nice regexp class available for c++, and then,
maybe perl really is only good for the 10 line hacks.
 
> I consider PERL to be somewhere between Assembler and programming in Microsoft
> BASIC byte-code (where each keyword mapped to a single byte value). It can be
> done, it can be powerful, but god help the person who comes after you to support
> it.

Executable line noise seems to be a common phrase.

> Bill - if you are looking for a solid language to learn, have you "done C" yet?
> The ORA Practical C book is very good (Steve Oaline (sp?), developer of vim, the
> One True editor),a s is the original Programming in C by Kernigan & Ritchie.

Before recommending C, I still would like to know what Bill wants to
do.  C doesn't really seem all that great for quick hacks.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd