I'm pretty certain the fact that Perl has a lot of syntax isn't key to its usefulness. It is key to its readability (when the programmer actually puts effort into expressing himself naturally), but not to usefulness.
Look at the usefulness of the aforementioned LISP, which doesn't have very bare syntax, but rather really has no syntax (the programmer is basically writing raw parse trees in textual representation). Yet LISP didn't have to syphon all that complexity into class libraries to be useful; it is right there in the core of the language.
Remember that Perl6 is doing a lot to orthogonize Perl syntax — sometimes adding by adding to it, but not rarely by dropping cases that so far have been special or by integrating multiple special cases in a unifying frame.
The elegance of C is its minimalism in assumptions — it doesn't do any of your work for you, but it also doesn't prevent you from doing anything. C++'s failure is that it implements the restrictions necessary to implement a higher level world view without offering any higher level constructs to get work done easier. You still have to do as much legwork to get places as in C, but suddenly you're no longer allowed (nay, even able) to walk across the field. You get no car, not even a bike, but you have to stick to the roads now.
Makeshifts last the longest.
In reply to Re^4: Perl6 syntax being too much complex? How we will teach and read that?!
by Aristotle
in thread Perl6 syntax being too much complex? How we will teach and read that?!
by gmpassos
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