perlmeditation
talexb
<p>I cooked some seasoned chicken breasts tonight for supper using my cast iron pan. First I turned the oven up to 300F (still old units for some things, even in a country that's been metric for about 30 years), then I put the cast iron pan on medium heat and let it warm.</p>
<p>Once the pan was ready, with the oven still heating, I seared the chicken two minutes per side, keeping a lid on the pan, then popped it into the oven, and started cooking rice and beans on the stove.</p>
<p>The chicken was ready when the rice was, about half an hour later, and I was pleased to see that it had stayed nice and moist. The meal was delicious.</p>
<p>Four hours after having cooked supper, I went back to the pan and washed it. Now, you never use soap on a cast iron pan -- that's a no-no -- because cast iron is slightly porous. It retains a little fat, and naturally provides a non-stick surface (or, mostly non-stick, anyways). Clean-up is a little scrub with my metal Kurly Kate and some water, then a bit of a dry with a cloth. I re-season this pan once in a while, but after 25 years use, it doesn't need it much. It's a well-used, well-loved pan, and one of my favourites.</p>
<p>Sort of like how Perl's been my favourite for some time -- about 15 years ago I was starting to tinker around with scripting languages because I was getting tired of writing C programs to open files, read arguments from the command line, do the usual munging of data. I found Perl after a little noodling with awk. Perl does have its quirks, both in the language and in the community. But treat both right, and you'll be well served for years and years.</p>
<p>So when I see some commercial on TV for a new kitchen appliance (and some of the American commercials are most comical, as seen by these Canadian eyes), I smile, just as it amuses me to read [http://slashdot.org|SlashDot]'s talk about how [http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/01/29/0235220/perls-glory-days-are-behind-it-but-it-isnt-going-anywhere|use in Perl is declining].</p>
<p>No, it's not the latest, coolest, shiniest thing, but there are many smart, hard-working people on the job behind Perl (the language and the community). And like my cast iron pan, it's going to be around, useful as ever, for a long time to come.</p>
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<p>Alex / [talexb] / Toronto</p>
<p><small>"<a href="http://www.groklaw.net">Groklaw</a> is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds</small></p>
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