in reply to Real Languages vs. Perl

Gee, I'd like to know what Mr. Swaine has to say to justify that statement. (: It really just sounds like someone who doesn't know much about Perl (I'm not saying that Mr. Swaine knows nothing about Perl, just that the one quote from him that you gave makes him sound like he doesn't).

I find myself missing features of Perl when I write in other languages much more often than I find myself missing features of other languages when I write in Perl.

I'll take a guess and say "strong typing".

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

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Re: Re: Real Languages vs. Perl
by doran (Deacon) on Jan 20, 2001 at 10:52 UTC
    Ahhhhhhhhh, strong typing. That's one (at least for some). Also, I know Perl probably isn't the best for complex math (unless you know what you're doing).

    So there are a couple of benefits. Still, that doesn't make Perl less than a real, full language, does it?

    Like I said, if an average joe said this, I'd just pass it off, but M. Swaine isn't an average joe. So...

    Maybe he's just pissed about TPJ being sold. ;}

[reply]
      Strong typing as usually implemented is a lot less useful than people imagine. See Smalltalk for a language without it which is very well suited to large projects. (In fact I have heard as a complaint that it is really only suited to large projects.)

      But yes. Perl is a real language. You can write real programs in it. They will do real work. You can get a real job being paid real money for this. Be happy. :-)

[reply]
      I wouldn't sweat M. Swaine's comments. It can be debated until the end of time what's "real" and what's not, but to my way of thinking, "real" is whatever gets the job done. If a language can be used to correctly solve a problem in a repeatable, timely manner (elegance is always good, too), then that's real enough.
[reply]

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