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Re: A proposal: new section on Perl Monks.

by tirwhan (Abbot)
on Feb 27, 2006 at 14:55 UTC ( [id://533032]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to A proposal: new section on Perl Monks.

There seems to be some difficulty by many here in understanding what it is you want. My own interpretation is that you would like access to a repository of nodes which take apart pieces of code (or algorithm implementations) and explain them in a spoken language, in terms that are understandable by a layman.

The problem with this IMO is the misconception that code expressed in English would be clearer than the same code expressed in Perl. Spoken languages are unsuitable for explaining algorithms in a concise and unambiguous manner. Think about it, if code could be expressed well in English, don't you think somebody would have written a complier to translate (a limited subset of) English to executable code? Contrary to what you may believe, Perl is not a limited subset of English, rather it is a language designed to express algorithms while achieving a reasonable compromise between a.) translatability of these expressions into machine code and b.) being intuitively understandable and learnable for speakers of natural languages.

Your problem (I think) is that you haven't made the jump to "thinking in Perl", which is necessary to program anything more than trivial. The translation route "Problem" -> "English description of the solution" -> "Perl implementation of the solution" will only get you so far, you need to get rid of the middle step. Accordingly, a "cheat sheet" translating Perl idioms into English (which I think is what you're after) is only of very limited usefulness and I don't think you'll get too many people excited about it.

BTW, your update seems rather counterproductive to me, since you are proposing an addition to this site and thus it is is your obligation to explain to people here why you think your idea is a good one, not the other way around.


All dogma is stupid.

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Re^2: A proposal: new section on Perl Monks.
by Anonymous Monk on Mar 01, 2006 at 16:08 UTC
    The problem with this IMO is the misconception that code expressed in English would be clearer than the same code expressed in Perl. Spoken languages are unsuitable for explaining algorithms in a concise and unambiguous manner. Think about it, if code could be expressed well in English, don't you think somebody would have written a complier to translate (a limited subset of) English to executable code?
    Does Lingua::Romana::Perligata ring a bell? Ok, it's Latin, not English but...
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