Everybody seems to be making a fuss about this WebTwoPointOh business and how PythonLanguage or RubyOnRails or EmeraldOnPylons or what-have-you is the NextBigThing. I'll stick to my good old sturdy reliable PerlLanguage, thanks.

''This seems to be the DecadeOfSlaggingPerl, for no reason that I can find. I use Perl and seem to get things done faster than my Python colleagues. I like how RegularExpression''''''s are so tightly integrated into the language. Of course the object system sucks, where sucks is defined as not the same as CeePlusPlus.''

* I find it ironic that the tone of the previous two comments implies that their authors don't even know PythonLanguage, RubyLanguage, or anything else comparable to Perl. To know whether it's worth the switch, don't you have to know a little about what's out there? --MarnenLaibowKoser (whose own view is strikingly similar to RobertFisher's comment below), 13 May 2011

I'll stick to my good old sturdy reliable BashLanguage, thanks. ;)
* If it works for you, fine and dandy, and I'm no Perl fanatic, I'm not even Yet Another Perl Hacker (although I do hack perl on occasion), '''but''' for '''non-casual''' purposes, shell languages like Bash are not in the running. I prefer Bash (or even tcsh/csh) when the goal is simple enough, but not for non-trivial purposes. Programmability of Unix shells is important, but an afterthought, in a very real sense; as complexity increases, it begins to make sense to move to a more powerful programming language that is still shell-like, whether that is awk, perl, python, ruby, or other. (I first implemented a Unix shell from scratch circa 1978, so although not ex cathedra, I do say the above advisedly.)

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...following the list of names format of some similar pages...
*RobertFisher
**I'm happy with Perl. It is perfectly GoodEnough for many tasks that are too complex for Bash, too simple for a "big project" language, & not worth doing in CeeLanguage. I have, however, come to prefer RubyLanguage for most tasks I used to use Perl for. (Although I'm actively exploring to see if I find something I prefer even more... to the point that I don't actually write very much Ruby at the moment.) If there's a convenient CPAN (ComprehensivePerlArchiveNetwork) module that'll make the task easy & I can't find an equivalent Ruby module, I'll happily use Perl. Likewise if (for some brain dead reason) I have Perl available but not Ruby.

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See also: OldGuardDeveloper

''Is Perl really old guard? Python is about the same age and Java isn't much newer.''

First public releases: PerlLanguage 1987; PythonLanguage 1990; JavaLanguage 1995.
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CategoryPerl