Screw understanding Perl. Write something about understanding programming. This mythical book would start with logic, work through metalogic, wend its way through data structures, have some tea and biscuits with people skills, discuss verification of design and function, and, on page 726, introduce the concept of the editor. At no time does this book have a single code listing in any language. Period. Oh, and it'd be accessible to my very smart 10-year old, yet engaging enough for a college student.

Why, you may ask? Because people can write garbage in every language. And, frankly, 99.9999999% of all programs are GARBAGE, pure and simple. They are unrecoverable, barely maintainable, buggy and insecure dreck.

"Oh, dragonchild. You're exagerrating." Uh ... no, I'm not. And every single person who reads this that has worked in more than 3 companies is unconciously nodding their collective heads right now. If enough people read this at the same time, there'd be a measurable wobble in the Earth's orbit. It is really and truly that bad.

My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re: What's missing in Perl books? by dragonchild
in thread What's missing in Perl books? by brian_d_foy

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