Re^10: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018

in reply to Re^9: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018
in thread Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018

The "anarchic and non-compliant" side of Perl can be a big strength for the individual hacker, but it also can be a big weakness when it comes to Perl being used in a bigger team as you need to explicitly agree on how to do things when with Python or Java there is simply one obvious way.

I belive it is much harder to build a functioning team using Perl and I also believe this is one of the major reasons why Python is taking over in fields like data science.

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Re^11: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018 by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Apr 14, 2018 at 22:21 UTC
can be a big weakness when it comes to Perl being used in a bigger team as you need to explicitly agree on how to do things when with Python or Java there is simply one obvious way Agreed, with caveats about there being "simply one obvious way" in Python, as detailed below. It seems you and I are one of the "many" mentioned in John Wang's claim that "TIMTOWTDI is often cited as a strength but, taken to an extreme, it is also seen as a weakness by many". I much prefer the Enlightened Perl Organisation alternative TIMTOWTDIBSCINABTE, pronounced "Tim Toady Bicarbonate": There's more than one way to do it, but sometimes consistency is not a bad thing either Python's TOOWTDI ("There should be one -- and preferably only one -- obvious way to do it") notwithstanding, I discovered that, in practice, Python sometimes provides more ways to do it than Perl! As analysed in The golf course looks great, my swing feels good, I like my chances (Part VI), when considering how to create a `"Dear John"` string in each of the four languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP) I could only see one obvious way to do it in Perl namely: `"Dear $name"` [download] while in Python I found three: "Dear %s" % expr # Python % printf-like operator "Dear {0}".format(expr) # Python format string method "Dear "+`expr` # Python backticks (TIMTOWTDI) [download] And from the classic 99 bottles of beer golf, when changing between "Take one down and pass it around" and "Go to the store and buy some more" - shortening the two strings above to "Take" and "Go to" for clarity - let's consider the many and varied ways of doing this in Python (TIMTOWTDI): `"Take"if n else"Go to" (n>0)*"Take"or"Go to" ["Go to","Take"][n>0] ("Go to","Take")[n>0] n and"Take"or"Go to" "GToa kteo"[n>0::2] # "Slice and Dice" wins this golf!` [download] Admittedly, the winning Python slice and dice golf solution can hardly be described as obvious. :) As you can see, playing golf in Python is fun because there is more than one way to do it! Curiously, code golf is more popular in Python than Perl nowadays. See The golf course looks great, my swing feels good, I like my chances (Part IV) for evidence.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re^11: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018
by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Apr 14, 2018 at 22:21 UTC

can be a big weakness when it comes to Perl being used in a bigger team as you need to explicitly agree on how to do things when with Python or Java there is simply one obvious way

John Wang

"TIMTOWTDI is often cited as a strength but, taken to an extreme, it is also seen as a weakness by many"

I much prefer the Enlightened Perl Organisation alternative TIMTOWTDIBSCINABTE, pronounced "Tim Toady Bicarbonate":

There's more than one way to do it, but sometimes consistency is not a bad thing either

Python's TOOWTDI ("There should be one -- and preferably only one -- obvious way to do it") notwithstanding, I discovered that, in practice, Python sometimes provides more ways to do it than Perl!

As analysed in The golf course looks great, my swing feels good, I like my chances (Part VI), when considering how to create a "Dear John" string in each of the four languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP) I could only see one obvious way to do it in Perl namely:

"Dear $name"
[download]

"Dear %s" % expr          # Python % printf-like operator
"Dear {0}".format(expr)   # Python format string method
"Dear "+`expr`            # Python backticks (TIMTOWTDI)
[download]

And from the classic 99 bottles of beer golf, when changing between "Take one down and pass it around" and "Go to the store and buy some more" - shortening the two strings above to "Take" and "Go to" for clarity - let's consider the many and varied ways of doing this in Python (TIMTOWTDI):

"Take"if n else"Go to"
(n>0)*"Take"or"Go to"
["Go to","Take"][n>0]
("Go to","Take")[n>0]
n and"Take"or"Go to"
"GToa kteo"[n>0::2]          # "Slice and Dice" wins this golf!
[download]

Curiously, code golf is more popular in Python than Perl nowadays. See The golf course looks great, my swing feels good, I like my chances (Part IV) for evidence.

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