My favourite bit:

What I'd like to be able do in practice is teach one canonical Way To Do It, and leave the more advanced syntax for an advanced session, or for newcomers to discover in their own time.
and then, two paragraphs later:
Perl also has many simple little things like the unless and until keywords, which are self-explanatory and make life much easier, and the short statement if condition and statement foreach list formations.
So, he wants one way to do everything, then turns around and compliments syntactical sugar added to the language that simply provides alternate ways of doing things.

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time taking someone seriously when they cry for consistency ... inconsistently.

Mind you, I've taught a handful of people perl (not 50, more like fewer than 10) and never encountered any of the concerns he brings up. Then again, I bring up things like TMTOWTDI as a feature instead of as a wart of the language, and so those I talk to start to treat it as such. (I also point out that despite being more than one way to do things, that doesn't make all ways equal - which one is best may depend on what you're doing, etc.)

In reply to Re: Teaching Perl by Tanktalus
in thread Teaching Perl by ambrus

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