Dear Monks,

Excuse me for questioning some of your wisdom.

Perl, for me, has the benefit of short development time, a great support community and a vast library of public code. Which makes it superb for getting things done.

Java has all that too--except for the short development time.

well, as opposed to Python / Ruby etc... which seem to also be very popular, but in my mind stand a bit in the middle ground and are neither as good at the swiss-army-chainsaw stuff as Perl

On what basis do you make that claim? Personal experience? Studies comparing the two languages? Popularity?

I think the best advise is Don't try to write Perl code in Java

I think that is one of those statements that might sound insightful to some people, but in fact it's really hollow to the core. First of all, java doesn't let you write perl. Second, a programmer is the sum of their experience. They write code how they write it--within the confines of a given syntax and the libraries that are available. Third, if you learned the Decorator pattern in perl, it is still good programming practice to use the Decorator pattern in Java. As you learn a language, you naturally start assimilating the idioms employed by that language's community, so you don't have to try to do anything--except write lots of practice programs and ask questions on forums like these.

Nay, I think the best advice is to write Java programs anyway you can. You'll get the hang of it, and I think your perl experience will help you immensely. Every language you learn will help you become a better programer. And every language you learn, will make learning the next language easier.

I just have to warn you, though: Java's I/0 system is a complete nightmare, and in the past it was the biggest barrier to entry. Doing anything more than printing some output to the screen was nearly impossible for a beginner to figure out. In recent times, they've added some classes to make I/O easier for beginners, which makes learning java much easier than it used to be. Oh, and compiling and executing programs isn't easy either--unless you use an IDE that does all that for you. There are probably two people in the world that can compile their programs using the command line, and I've never seen any evidence that they post on the internet.

In reply to Re: Perl "with" Java by 7stud
in thread Perl "with" Java by Anonymous Monk

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