Turing equivalence allows you to compute the same things, true, but it does not allow you to _do_ the same things.

Besides computation, the only other thing there is to _do_ is I/O. Whether Perl has adequate I/O without modules is going to depend I suppose on what kind of I/O you need to do, but in general if you compare it to other existing languages it fares quite well in that regard. Syscalls are not, strictly speaking, needed for anything other than I/O.

However, I certainly agree that Turing equivalence is in itself not enough to expect out of a good language. That was actually my point, though maybe I didn't state it very clearly. If that were enough, we could all just use assembly language, or, as far as that goes, program using hexadecimal numbers directly. Having a good language is about making things more efficient, easier, better, et cetera; for Perl, part of that is the CPAN; I personally do not consider any Perl installation to be complete or terribly useful in practice without a working CPAN.pm

There happens to be at the moment more on this topic (Turing equivalence and its inadequacy as a criterion for determining the usefulness of a language) on my pad, as I am presently in the process of piecing together there a pending meditation which may or may not end up getting posted. (Feedback on it, including whether it is worth posting, is welcome.) 

$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}}
split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/

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In reply to Re: What could I do with just Perl? by jonadab
in thread What could I do with just Perl? by Cody Pendant

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