(As a side note I could imagine that learning perl first "spoils" you as a programmer, i.e. you never want to miss it's dwim'miness.)

It's funny, many people in the threads linked above said that back then, too. Reminds me of the great, recent I think Perl ruined me as a programmer.

In 2002, I thought it silly. Perl is too good of a tool for the job, so start with something worse? What nonsense.

Now, though, I'm not so sure. When I learned photography, I learned with an ancient 35mm Pentax, developing my own film and printing my own prints. It was a gigantic pain! My workflow was hours longer than it is today with digital. Sometimes I'd spend a day on some rolls of film and get nothing out of it.

But, comparing myself with other amateurs who have been digital exclusive, I think I picked up many virtues. I no longer have to buy film, but I'm still careful about the composition of every single shot. I grew up without Photoshop, so I don't take shots I intend to fix later, I take the right shot now. Etc. etc.

My comparison, did my own programming become more robust because I started out with a "pain in the rear" language? Today, I think so. The real question is whether or not it was worth the aggravation, though, and I don't have an answer for that. I'm better today for my experience, but what if it turned me off of programming entirely?

On the subject of types, I do not recall which Perl-related slideshow I was watching, but one of the slides said something like:

I want static typing!
No, you don't. Remember the hell that was atoi()?

I'm sort of undecided on the issue at the moment, but the annoyance that slide made me remember tips the scale in the direction of dynamically typed languages.

In reply to Re^2: Perl as one's first programming language by amarquis
in thread Perl as one's first programming language by amarquis

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