Re^2: Perl is dying

in reply to Re: Perl is dying
in thread Perl is dying

From a quick look at your webpage, it looks like you've been out of school for five years, so your five years of coding Perl have been since getting out of school. Do you think the ease with which you're picking up Python could be that you're now more experienced with computer languages in general? Or could it be similar to the urge to rewrite code that people have, but in this case you're kind of rewriting the whole language that you're using. The grass is always greener on the other side.

By the way, if you like simple syntax, why aren't you programming in Lisp? :)

Comment on Re^2: Perl is dying

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Re^3: Perl is dying by thraxil (Prior) on Jul 17, 2006 at 17:54 UTC
I was writing a lot of Perl while I was in school. Yes, part of the reason that I picked up Python quickly was that I was a more experienced programmer. Still, since I learned Python, I've had to occasionally go back to Perl for weeks or months at a time to work on old code and it's never gotten as comfortable as Python. If the ease of learning a language was only (or even mostly) dependent on the experience of the programmer (as you seem to suggest), I should have been able to go back to Perl and be even more proficient in it than I was in Python since I then had even more experience. I love Lisp, but every time I've attempted to use it for something non-trivial, I hit a wall usually involving libraries and cross-platform issues. Eg, last time I attempted to write a blogging engine in Lisp, I never managed to get an ORM library, a webserver, and a templating library all installed and running at the same time in the same lisp interpreter. One or the other seemed to have issues with SBCL, Clisp, or Allegro that I wasn't able to debug. But I keep trying once a year or so and each time I make it a little farther. So maybe next time. In the meantime, I do write a lot of emacs lisp and it makes me happy. anders pearson	[reply]

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Re^3: Perl is dying
by thraxil (Prior) on Jul 17, 2006 at 17:54 UTC

I was writing a lot of Perl while I was in school. Yes, part of the reason that I picked up Python quickly was that I was a more experienced programmer. Still, since I learned Python, I've had to occasionally go back to Perl for weeks or months at a time to work on old code and it's never gotten as comfortable as Python. If the ease of learning a language was only (or even mostly) dependent on the experience of the programmer (as you seem to suggest), I should have been able to go back to Perl and be even more proficient in it than I was in Python since I then had even more experience.

I love Lisp, but every time I've attempted to use it for something non-trivial, I hit a wall usually involving libraries and cross-platform issues. Eg, last time I attempted to write a blogging engine in Lisp, I never managed to get an ORM library, a webserver, and a templating library all installed and running at the same time in the same lisp interpreter. One or the other seemed to have issues with SBCL, Clisp, or Allegro that I wasn't able to debug. But I keep trying once a year or so and each time I make it a little farther. So maybe next time. In the meantime, I do write a lot of emacs lisp and it makes me happy.

anders pearson

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