Re: Should I come back to Perl?

(1) Anticipate that at some near-future time you will have the opportunity to work on yet-another language that you haven’t used before. Therefore, make it your business (since it is “your business” ...) to familiarize yourself with as many languages as possible. (I happen to think that it’s fun.)

(2) Also assume that new languages will always be coming on to the scene (e.g. Apple’s now open-source [Tom?] Swift), and that languages now in use will never die. On the one hand, people are always looking for new and more-efficient ways to build certain things (and so, they are designing languages for that purpose), and on the other hand, they accumulate a vast monetary investment in the systems that they already have. Be their solution to their problem, no matter what it is.

The more nimble you are ... and the more you’re willing to say “sure, I can do that,” and never let them see you sweat, and somehow make-good on your promise ... the more marketable you will be. It does not matter that you focus on “one or two languages” for extended periods throughout your career. (Everyone does that.) You will find that it all comes right back to you. If the next one’s in Perl (5, or, who knows, 6?), jump in. The water’s fine.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Should I come back to Perl? by jekyll (Acolyte) on Sep 11, 2015 at 22:30 UTC
\o, 1) The only reason I started using Python after Perl and PHP is that knowing more languages is inviting, there can always be a case where one of the rarely used languages is the perfect match. Yes, it's fun. :-) 2) I've seen many languages come and Go (pun intended), I thought Pascal would survive, then I thought Visual Basic would survive, then I stoppped believing. ;-) So here I am, not choosing my languages by the career they promise me (here in Germany, everything except Java, C++ and PHP is mostly irrelevant for the real life), diving through the waters... Regards and all that, jkl	[reply]
Re^3: Should I come back to Perl? by jf1 (Beadle) on Sep 15, 2015 at 18:16 UTC
ad 1: Python2 will have support at least up to 2020, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4836375/end-of-support-for-python-2-7. Likely longer as there are tons of legacy code. In addition lots of python 3 features have meanwhile been backported to python 2. So some of the differences have vanished. ad 2: Pascal is still living despite having lost popularity. As well is Tcl in some places, in particular if dealing with CISCO machines. If you're looking for a rock solid language that doesn't require you to rewrite programs every few years, why not trying that instead? In addition: Multi threading support in Tcl is by far more efficient than in python or perl IMHO. Runtime environment is much smaller and one can alternatively easily deploy executables without need of proper installation of runtime. And most important: you'll likely be able to read and understand your program half a year later ;-) Its just: Tcl has a strange syntax that needs getting used to, and programs are definitely longer most of the time, especially in comparison to perl's terseness. Having to rewrite your programs can happen e.g. with java as well, especially if you are writing web applications.	[reply]


Don't ask to ask, just ask
	PerlMonks