Re^4: Is Perl a good career move?

It's not PERL. Perl is not an acronym.

Re natural languages: there are things I can express in Esperanto, but not in Dutch. There are things I can express in Dutch, but not in English. I know these three languages fairly well. Funnily, it's exactly the other way around here: the easiest to learn language is also the most expressive one.

It is possible to use both Perl and PHP, but it is not easy. Once your mind thinks in maps, greps, arrays, lexicals, closures, namespaces and short circuiting operators, PHP is a major pain in the ass. You can still get the job done, but it hurts mentally and IMO, not much is worth that. (Note: do not read that as "that is not worth much")

Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

Comment on Re^4: Is Perl a good career move?

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Re^5: Is Perl a good career move? by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Feb 23, 2005 at 10:47 UTC
Once your mind thinks in maps, greps, arrays, lexicals, closures, namespaces and short circuiting operators, PHP is a major pain in the ass. Actually, most languages become a major pain in the ass at that point. `:-)` And it makes me understand quite well what makes LISP hackers so grumpy about many other languages. After all, We all recall that Perl est un esprit LISP dans un corps C, n'est-ce pas? `:-)` (“corps C” sounds like “corset” in French.) —Philippe Verdret Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re^6: Is Perl a good career move? by Anonymous Monk on Nov 27, 2005 at 22:46 UTC
Indeed, once your mind additionally thinks in first-class classes, restartable conditions, unwind-protect (or CALL/CC for the Schemers), bignums, arbitrary-precision arithmetic and is used to building your own abstractions (without jumping through hoops) and incrementally updating/changing programs (including the compiler/runtime) while they run, almost all languages become a major pain in the ass.	[reply]
Re^5: Is Perl a good career move? by soup (Initiate) on Feb 23, 2005 at 00:14 UTC
Doesn't Perl stand for Practical Extraction and Reporting Language? I could very easily be wrong though! Anyway, I will refrain from using PERL in future, to avoid straying from the subject. In my honest opinion Perl is a great language to learn how to program and by no means least, how to be creative. Someone else in this thread mentioned something along the lines of if you know Perl, you know how to tackle problems. Creativity and knowing how to tackle problems are essential skills required for handling real-life problematic situations, no matter what language you use. So in that respect Perl is a great career move. If another language has shortcomings, find a way around it or better still, use a language more suitable for the job. That is, if you are free to choose, ofcourse!	[reply]
Re^6: Is Perl a good career move? by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Feb 23, 2005 at 05:37 UTC
Doesn't Perl stand for Practical Extraction and Reporting Language? No. That is a backronym. See also Re^2: The Lighter Side of Perl Culture (Part III) - origin of the name Perl.	[reply]


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