Re: Slashdot on Perl

The original article certainly wasn't intended as flame-bait. It was just a description of an situation that some of my friends (and former colleagues) have found themselves in. It seemed to me that it nicely illustrated an opinion that I'm hearing more and more frequently.

I checked in on the Slashdot discussion when it was a couple of hours old and it seemed that the level of debate was higher than I usually see there. I assume it later dropped to more predictable levels :-)

See the Copyright notice on my home node.

"The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg

Comment on Re: Slashdot on Perl

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Re^2: Slashdot on Perl by sasdrtx (Friar) on Aug 27, 2008 at 23:04 UTC
After further review, I see you're entirely correct. After reading a lot of the comments, I'd forgotten that the original article was actually sympathetic; and the title is somewhat ironic. But it sure dug up a lot of Perl resentment. However, I think it is very valuable to listen (or read) critics, for a number of reasons, mainly to find out what bothers people, what misconceptions are out there, and what should maybe be improved. Here's some not-necessarily representative samples: "That's because PERL, even good PERL, looks like an explosion at the punctuation factory compared to a vast majority of other languages." "What is worng with you Perl programmers? Does the thought of a newline or indentation, possibly even whitespace fill you with fear and horror?" "...nearly all of the perl code I've seen has been virtually indecipherable to anybody not a perl veteran." "Slashdot is written in Perl. Whenever a business is mentioned on slashdot, their website goes down. Ergo, Perl is bad for business." To be fair, there are lots of good pro-Perl comments posted (at least now) too. Maybe the good news is that 950 people thought it was worth commenting on. sas	[reply]

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Re^2: Slashdot on Perl
by sasdrtx (Friar) on Aug 27, 2008 at 23:04 UTC

However, I think it is very valuable to listen (or read) critics, for a number of reasons, mainly to find out what bothers people, what misconceptions are out there, and what should maybe be improved.

Here's some not-necessarily representative samples:

"That's because PERL, even good PERL, looks like an explosion at the punctuation factory compared to a vast majority of other languages."
"What is worng with you Perl programmers? Does the thought of a newline or indentation, possibly even whitespace fill you with fear and horror?"
"...nearly all of the perl code I've seen has been virtually indecipherable to anybody not a perl veteran."
"Slashdot is written in Perl. Whenever a business is mentioned on slashdot, their website goes down. Ergo, Perl is bad for business."

To be fair, there are lots of good pro-Perl comments posted (at least now) too. Maybe the good news is that 950 people thought it was worth commenting on.

sas

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