[oclug] Yet Another Language Discussion (was Re: Python )

[Michael P. Soulier]

On 18/06/03 Phil Tanguay did speaketh:

> Honestly, I don't "get" Perl, and the love affair a lot of people have with
> it.  I'm sure I'm missing something, but every time I've looked at it, the
> syntax struck me as such a confusing mess that I backed away slowly and went
> back to the tools I knew (C, C++, bash, PHP).
> 
> So, seriously, what's so great about Perl that makes people put up with such
> an abhorent syntax ?  To me, it looks unmaintable.

    It's funny that you mention C. 

Tr(L,r,
C(r,3)&&C(r,3)<=d?(l)(((int)B)+d+C(r,4)-C(r,3)):(((int)B)^d)>>24&&--\
r,(l)d)
Tr(Run,a,(ss=strcmp((F*)B+C((V(12)>>16),4)+C(--r,0),A(.strtab))?ss:(F\
*)B+C(r ,4),C(r,1)-2),0) add(Sca ,V(-~i)-P+2)
add(ru,strcmp(ss+V(i),A(main)))
E(DX) { c *z? DX:DX <<030|(DX&65280)<<010|DX>>8&65280|DX>>24&0377; } l
K(k){
c L(E(k [(l)V(17)]),0); } V(v){ c E(B[v]); }


    This is one of the entries from the 2001 ioccc. Damned if I know
what it does. You can write bad code in any language. Sure, some of the
make it easier, but that doesn't make it a bad language. 

    I'm very used to the syntax, and frankly, I find the syntax in Ruby
and Tcl to be worse at times. I'm surprised you mentioned bash,
considered that Perl got much of its syntax from the shell-scripting
world. 

    I have other complaints about Perl, but it's still a great language
to get the job done.

    Mike

-- 
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier at digitaltorque.ca>, GnuPG pub key: 5BC8BE08
"...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount
of nerd-like effort."  -Harley Hahn, A Student's Guide to Unix
IM: msoulier at jabber.org
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