[derrickpetzold]

Oh my why would anyone want to lean Perl anymore? Unless you are working with a legacy codebase learn Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Erlang, Scala, Haskell... in other words run the f away from Perl if you can unless you are into S&M.

[chromatic]

Oh my why would anyone want to lean Perl anymore?

Because it's powerful, it's easy to start, it's flexible, it's productive, it's ubiquitous, and it has an unparalleled extension ecosystem devoted to quality and ease of use.

[derrickpetzold]

lol so do all the languages mentioned above plus they are prettier.

[rjbond3rd]

I don't think you read what you're responding to. How can they all have an "unparalleled extension ecosystem"?

[derrickpetzold]

Thank you I did read the post. Python has pypi. Ruby has gems. I'm not going to google the rest but if they don't have one there is no reason why they can't.

And FYI pypi is better than CPAN so all the other stuff in the that post is crap imho. I was a Perl dev for ~10 years. Now have about 5 worth of Python. So thank you.

[Mithaldu]

I don't know about python, but ruby's gems are quite inferior. Just two points:

gems has no idea if any specific gem is already installed, so if you ask it to, it will just install over whatever is there, no matter if it's the same or not.

Additionally it does not automatically run tests and abort if they fail, so the chance of installing a broken gem over your existing working gem is pretty big.

[otterley]

There is a culture of documentation, cooperation and tolerance in the Perl community that, IME, doesn't really exist for other language communities (Ruby and Python).

Compare, for example, AnyEvent's documentation with that of Twisted - or any of Perl's standard documentation with that of Ruby.

[chromatic]

I'm not going to google the rest but if they don't have one there is no reason why they can't.

That somehow fails to convince me that other language ecosystems parallel the CPAN in breadth, scope, maturity, and ecosystem. See CPAN Testers, for example.

[derrickpetzold]

Oh my apologies I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything if that's what you are thinking. I was only stating fact based on my experience but that's okay just downvote this and make yourself right.

[kamaal]

Legacy?

I hear about new Perl projects starting in large enterprises everyday!

Unless you are in the web programming domain(Somehow web developers think their's is the only software being written in the whole world) where your Python and Ruby frameworks seem to be famous. Perl is pretty big in the backend.

Perl is here to stay, and its simply too useful to be going away anytime soon.

[derrickpetzold]

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...

[kamaal]

I didn't get your point. I have found Perl(And many have) very useful for whatever we do.

So we continue to use it. Just because there is some new shiny stuff around, we don't use just for the sake for using it.

Trolling Perl to advocate Python hasn't helped for decades and won't help now either. A better debate will be to argue on technical merits. Trolling and whining gets people curious to verify if all that is true, thereby forcing them to read and some readers adopt it too.

[derrickpetzold]

To be fair I didn't think I was trolling but I can completely understand why you think I was. I could only talk about things I as knew them to be. Whether that makes me an ass or an idiot I don't care. I did want to hear a good argument as why I was wrong and again I appreciate your reply.

EDIT: My original comment was really just meant to be humorous I am sure know why since you are aware of Perl's syntax. It did make me a lot of money at a time but nevertheless I stand by what I said as that is the best advice I could give myself right now.