What is modern Perl? Python. (I'll elaborate more here from my earlier one-word answer).
Long-time perl programmer here, until I found Python. Perl is powerful, but Perl is for the programmer, not the programmer's coworkers. It's not even for the programmer 6 months down the line. This is nothing new, and it has become a stereotype in the community.
Yes, this argument has been made and refuted many times, but I argue the reason isn't the language, but the dominant language paradigms.
Perl's "monk" ideal is not sustainable in the long term, and encourages "clever hackers" who can do things with the fewest lines of fundamentally unreadable code. Yes, the language has evolved. Yes, it is slightly easier to read now. But the goals of the community still tend toward the ideals of becoming a master of arcana who can pass his wisdom down to the less experienced.
Give me a language that the commoners can read, that a beginning programmer can feel empowered to learn because he can take one look at the source code of someone truly experienced and know at least a part of what is going on.
You can change Perl all you want, but you cannot get away from the fundamental guiding principles of the language, which encourage antisocial, clever, and magic code.
Long-time perl programmer here, until I found Python. Perl is powerful, but Perl is for the programmer, not the programmer's coworkers. It's not even for the programmer 6 months down the line. This is nothing new, and it has become a stereotype in the community.
Yes, this argument has been made and refuted many times, but I argue the reason isn't the language, but the dominant language paradigms.
Perl's "monk" ideal is not sustainable in the long term, and encourages "clever hackers" who can do things with the fewest lines of fundamentally unreadable code. Yes, the language has evolved. Yes, it is slightly easier to read now. But the goals of the community still tend toward the ideals of becoming a master of arcana who can pass his wisdom down to the less experienced.
Give me a language that the commoners can read, that a beginning programmer can feel empowered to learn because he can take one look at the source code of someone truly experienced and know at least a part of what is going on.
You can change Perl all you want, but you cannot get away from the fundamental guiding principles of the language, which encourage antisocial, clever, and magic code.