Depending on the circles you hang out in, you will also find the author's name immediately recognizable. At least I found it so.

In fact that particular page is one that I have seen discussed before. By people with quite a bit of experience in many languages. As a discussion of key mistakes in language design that you want to avoid. Now you may disagree with some of his biases (I know that I do), but there is not one technical criticism he makes that is not worth listening to.

So please swallow your criticism, go back to the site, and read it. Feel free to ask for explanations of any of the terms that you do not understand. Feel free to ask for explanations of why the things that he wants would be useful things to have. (And no, Perl does not have all of them. But it does have several.)

But take it from me that this is not your random, lame-ass, let's flame a language today, link. And it is not written by a random geek with an opinion and a website. OK, some of the criticisms might be dated now that Java is a little more mature, they are still worth a read.

Actually if you have been around computers a while it is immediately apparent upon reading the discussion that the author of that link has quite a bit more knowledge than the average, "Language X sucks because" author.

Depending on the circles you hang out in, you will also find the author's name immediately recognizable. At least I found it so.

Yes, and also the link under "dime" in my post is from Tom Christiansen, whom of course noone needs to be reminded is one of Perl's founding fathers...talking about what sucks about it. My point was not to dismiss the technical merits of the article (I saved myself the time of reading that particular article, because I've read more X vs Y, "why this is best/worst" articles/ng posts/marketing spiel from language homepages than I can remember. More than enough to make me sick), but rather to point out that these language comparisons are bottomless pits.

As I also mentioned briefly in the CB too at one point, I find it interesting how Perl programmers (of which, I occasionally consider myself one) stress not to reinvent the wheel, and yet few hesitate to discuss over and over and over the same topics (is anyone here going to argue that any Slashdot article that even mentions Perl or Python or Ruby in the title doesn't turn into a language war 95% of the time?).

As programmers, we should know better. The fact that we haven't figured out that these debates have already been done (pleeeeeeeease don't try to convince me this isn't Perl vs. Java number 289282112), is maybe one more indication of why many people make the claim that software development is still in its primitive stages.

Those who really want to know what is the best language/IDE/OS/Widget Toolkit/Perl Book, etc, etc aren't asking about, they're doing it and figuring it out for themselves. When are we going to realize that the more you listen to the thoughts of others to help you make a decision, the more you'll chase your own tail?

Every language (or OS, or IDE, or text editor, etc) has serious drawbacks to it in one arena or another (and if you ask, I'll be happy to tell what it is that I personally hate about Perl, or C, or C++, or Powerbuilder or Cobol, or Windows, or Linux, or OpenBSD, or...), and everybody thinks in different ways. How many more "X vs Y" debates are there going to be before we acknowledge this? The only way you'll every really know what works better for you is to forget the hype and just write code.

Update:

When are we going to realize that the more you listen to the thoughts of others to help you make a decision, the more you'll chase your own tail?



could have been better phrased as

When are we going to realize that the more you listen to the thoughts of others to tell you what the best language/OS/IDE/Widget Toolkit/etc for you is, the more you'll chase your own tail?

Please don't try to convince you that this isn't Perl vs Java again?

OK then, I won't.

I will say that he doesn't like Perl, he doesn't spend the article saying that other languages are better, and he spends basically all of it discussing his actual experiences from trying to code a lot of Java.

But I won't try to convince you this link is not just a Perl-Java discussion. Or a Java vs anything in particular rant. (Well maybe CLOS, but he doesn't program in that any more.) Because you don't want to hear it.

I still think it is a worthwhile read. Even if you are not interested in hearing language comparisons. Even if you are not interested in Java. (Which I am not.)

But go ahead. Save yourself the time. After all the article is a waste of time, you basically said so yourself. Why bother listening to someone who actually read it, when you already made up your mind?

As I said, don't bother. After all I am willing to bet that you won't know what 90% of what he is talking about is about. Why bother learning what those techniques are and when you might want to use them? After all they don't work in Java so they must be useless, right? (Many of them are not supported in Perl either. Gads, why would someone want to waste brainpower on that?)