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Re: WWDC 08
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Re: WWDC 08


  • Subject: Re: WWDC 08
  • From: "Pierce T. Wetter III" <email@hidden>
  • Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:27:49 -0700

Perl: an abomination upon software development.

Chuck and not a great fan of Perl syntax

Ya know, I used to feel like Perl was well, line noise.

 Then I read "Effective Perl Programing".

http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Perl-Programming-Programs-Developers/dp/0201419750/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205446647&sr=8-1

 And I realized, Perl isn't line noise.

It's math. Yeah, there's a lot of symbols and stuff, but math has lots of symbols and stuff. The whole regular expression thing makes the "line noise" problem worse, but regular expressions just look like that.

I think people judge Perl a bit unfairly. It grew out of awk/sed/sh scripting, and its way better then any of those other options. I would much rather maintain a .pl script then a .sh script. At least with Perl I don't have to figure out the eval command every time I want to add two numbers together.

So if I want to parse a text file, mangle the data in it, and spit out another text file, I use perl.

If I want to write a .sh script that has any branching at all, I use perl instead.

The real problem with perl is that people use it for programs > than about 2 pages of source. That's where you start getting into trouble. At that point, use Python, cause it can do the same regular expression stuff, and you end up with decent code at the end.

So perl? Great tool, but its duct tape. Don't build your house out of it.

 Pierce

P.S.

 Meanwhile, Ant still sucks.




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References: 
 >WWDC 08 (From: David LeBer <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WWDC 08 (From: Mike Schrag <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WWDC 08 (From: Chuck Hill <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WWDC 08 (From: Simon McLean <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WWDC 08 (From: Jake Kauth <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WWDC 08 (From: Chuck Hill <email@hidden>)

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