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Postings from July 2000
At 03:00 PM 7/24/00 -0700, Chip Salzenberg wrote: >According to Flach, Robert: > > Could some one explain to me in what way perl is "too complex?" > > "Using a simple tool to solve a complex problem does not > result in a simple solution." -- Chairman Larry > >Ironically, the parts of Perl that are perceived as "too complex" are >sometimes those that are simplest linguistically, which are therefore >inadequate to the jobs that people are using them for. We hear repeatedly (recently, at the mike in TPC4) that a barrier to Perl is difficulty of maintainability, and I have, like many of you, scratched my head long and hard on the subject. As a practical if partial solution, I would like Perl 6 to be maximally strict by default (this is for some value of 'strict' that is even greater than it is now). I realize that in time, we may discover even more strictness that is possible and it will not be reasonable to retroactively apply this, so the 'maximal' part of my suggestion may not be permanent; I do not think this detracts from the idea though. I have been reading Camel III and am a little disappointed that it does not recommend -w and strictness as essential to the beginner. I get where it's coming from - that programs are more elegant without them - but I do not see this as an asset in anything more than 20 lines long, which, coincidentally, is the average length of a code snippet in documentation. I would rather people have to learn the commands to play more recklessly than less. $0.02. -- Peter Scott Pacific Systems Design TechnologiesThread Previous | Thread Next