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Re: I want you to convince me to learn Perl

by choroba (Cardinal)
on Sep 24, 2013 at 22:50 UTC ( [id://1055556]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to I want you to convince me to learn Perl

If you already know C, Bash and AWK, you almost know Perl. There is only a little you have to learn, as Perl heavily borrows from all the three.

Cleanness and direct readability are subjective. Popularity is fugacious.
Perl also has a new version in use (it's 5.18).

Pick the language whose community makes you more comfortable. You probably will need its help in the beginning, sometimes.

لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: I want you to convince me to learn Perl
by boftx (Deacon) on Sep 24, 2013 at 23:57 UTC

    I emphatically second this.

    Like you, I was heavily involved in embedded systems design (back in the 80s) where assembly and C ruled the world. Eventually, I became more involved with system administration on Unix and then bash, sed and awk took over. It was in the mid-90s, when Perl had matured into something that resembles what we have today, that I fully embraced it not only for simple scripts and reports, but full-blown applications such as billing systems for an ISP.

    I think it is the common heritage that Perl shares with C, the Unix culture and attitudes, that has made it my favorite language by far. For me, it was a natural extension of C. Perl strongly resembles what many would call C pseudo code, especially when it comes to text processing. The two languages have a similar syntax and structure in mind, and there is a cheat-sheet that lists Perl gotchas that C programmers are prone to being caught by because the languages are so similar.

    I can not speak with regard to Python as I have never had reason to learn it, Perl has done everything I have ever asked of it from simple one-off scripts to major systems including the implementation of am ISP, web hosting, and a credit card issuing/processing company.

    On time, cheap, compliant with final specs. Pick two.
Re^2: I want you to convince me to learn Perl
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Sep 26, 2013 at 14:01 UTC

    If you already know C, Bash and AWK, you almost know Perl.

    I emphatically disagree.

    Someone with that knowledge might be able to start writing code in Perl without too much difficulty, but what makes Perl a great language is how it does many things incredibly different to great advantage. It challenges assumptions one has taken as fact after coding in C and C-like languages.

      Completely agree beyond the novice level. One might see Perl as a bridge between C and Lisp where you can seemlessly move between both approaches.
Re^2: I want you to convince me to learn Perl
by Jenda (Abbot) on Sep 25, 2013 at 14:52 UTC

    Well ... there's a lot to learn, but you can learn it as you go and work with the subset that matches the features of C, Bash and AWK in the meantime.

    Jenda
    Enoch was right!
    Enjoy the last years of Rome.

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