IMHO academics prefer axiomatic systems where a limited set of rules can be applied to derive the rest. Your colleagues can be lazy b/c other academics prepared the modules.

Maybe I don't know Python enough to tell, but it has this appeal ... while Perl is a pile of DWIM magic exceptions, which are fun for experienced coders who don't wanna miss their features from other languages (bash, sed, awk, c, lisp, ...) but do confuse many Asperger folks who only accept "one way to do it".

Ruby OTOH shows that it is possible to transport rich semantics into a more orthogonal syntax, by breaking compatibility to Perl5.

Should be noted that P5 never really broke compatibility to P4, thus giving it an incredible amount of obscure features and exception rules.

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

In reply to Re^3: Something to meditate on -- the need for a trendy perl? by LanX
in thread Something to meditate on -- the need for a trendy perl? by perl-diddler

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.