Wired Magazine Reference to Perl

This month’s issue of Wired magazine has an article about a Chinese kid who’s supposed to be super-smart, and who is now involved (single-handledly?) in a DNA-sequencing project that’s supposed to be looking for, well in so many words, the “IQ gene.” But I rather liked this quote (on page 120):

Perl is a famously complicated language that takes university students a full year to learn ...

(Never mind that the amazing-accomplishment mentioned in the article is to have taken a copy of the Camel book and, you know, understood it in a couple of days ...)

Comment on Wired Magazine Reference to Perl

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by moritz (Cardinal) on Jul 30, 2013 at 10:03 UTC
I've been doing Perl for about 10 years now, and I'm pretty sure I haven't finished learning the language yet. Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed	[reply]
Re^2: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by Anonymous Monk on Jul 30, 2013 at 10:20 UTC
I've been doing Perl for about 10 years now, and I'm pretty sure I haven't finished learning the language yet. What does that even mean (learning the language)? OTOH, it took the wiz days, I did it in two and a half hours :P	[reply]
Re^3: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by Dallaylaen (Chaplain) on Aug 01, 2013 at 14:06 UTC
<offtopic> This reminds me of an old joke. "How long does it take to learn to play chess?" "Well, that depends on your talent, intelligence, and willpower." "And if I have none of these?" "Half an hour."	[reply]
Re: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by SuicideJunkie (Vicar) on Jul 30, 2013 at 14:43 UTC
I was given only two weeks to learn Perl at work after first hearing its name that very day. At the end of it, I had a server you could point any browser (except IE) at, log in, and trade game resources with other players. Its not that it requires a year to learn, its that university courses take a year. And they're probably not teaching Perl, but rather are teaching algorithms using Perl.	[reply]
Re: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Jul 30, 2013 at 11:51 UTC
Perl is a famously complicated language that takes university students a full year to learn Unless you can lay your hands on "Learning Perl in 24 Hours, Unleashed, in a Nutshell, for Dummies" ... though Norvig says it takes ten years.	[reply]
Re: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by Skeeve (Parson) on Jul 30, 2013 at 07:41 UTC
I wonder what this quote tells us about university students these days ;) `s$$([},&%#}/&/]+}%&{});#$&&s&&$^X.($'^"%]=\&(\|?{%` `+`.+=%;.#_}\&"^"-+%*).}%:##%}={~=~:.")&e&&s""`$''`"e	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Wired Magazine Reference to Perl by fisher (Priest) on Aug 01, 2013 at 14:28 UTC
complicated language that takes university students a full year to learn ... well, at least they don't mention what kind of students are there -- maybe a students from the faculty of applied history or something like that	[reply]


Think about Loose Coupling
	PerlMonks