Re: What do you use as a language litmus?

I care more about the writeability of a language, than of the readability.

How easy is it to start a new function? How much "junk" do you have to write as a basic framework for any addition?
Can I remember how to do it right easily, or does it pretty much require to copy/paste a boilerplate for the code before starting?
Can I express what I want easily without having to jump through too many hoops? This mostly boils down to: what kind of stuff can I pass as parameters?
If I change my mind ever so slightly, do I have to rewrite a lot of code just to fit the change?
How tricky is it to get it right?

And, last but not least: how fast does it run?

Needless to say, for me, Perl scores highly on all these points.

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Re^2: What do you use as a language litmus?
by apotheon (Deacon) on Jun 27, 2007 at 17:15 UTC

I think it's telling that I've never heard of a "read-only" language. The implication I draw from this is that readability is dependent upon writability: the extent to which a language is writable is an upper bound to its readability. So, yeah -- writability is of pretty significant importance objectively, I think, as well as subjectively.

print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);
- apotheon
CopyWrite Chad Perrin

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