It all depends of the type of problems one is trying to solve. Unfortunately Perl is not the optimal answer to each and every problem.

In this context I'd like to mention Lisp (or Scheme if you prefer) for dynamic coding (code == data). By way of example, try to do genetic programming in Perl vs. Lisp, although one can obviously do it in Perl, it's way easier in Lisp.

When dealing with rule based problems and inference, Prolog or Clips is the way to go. Of course you can write your own inference engine if you must.

Even internet programming can be more convenient in Rebol than it is in Perl since it is much easier to distribute the runtime system over various computers.

Writing a parser is easy in Perl with Parse::RecDescent, but unfortunately it's sometimes prohibitively slow, so that one must resort to Java or C++ with a tool like AntLR.

When dealing with math problems, it's a lot easier to use Maple or Mathematica to get the symbolic maths done, and Matlab for the numerics.

As I said, it all depends on what problem you have to solve. The more programming languages, the more freedom, the less effort one has to spend. There's more than one way to do it and There's more than one language to code in.

Just my 2 cents, -gjb-

In reply to Re: Perl is Flexible, So I am Not by gjb
in thread Perl is Flexible, So I am Not by princepawn

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.