Re: Perl, the new generation

Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and "David Grove" <[email protected]
m> whispered:
| > I think what Stephen is saying (and he's not the only one) is that
| > the bare minimum amount of Perl you *must* know to be productive
| > is increasing.  Either that, or we're giving the impression that
| 
| For me, it's the bare minimum amount of Perl you must *use* to be productive
| that I see increasing in our plans and discussions. I'm afraid of Perl

A little of both is what I was talking about.  Also, the bare minimum
amount of software development theory that you have to know to be
productive.

I may be a bit of an anomoly in that perl was my first heavily used
language.  I'd had a pascal class (or two) in college, I'd done a little
scripting as an SA, but by no means was I a developer.  I was able to
easily pick up perl and use it almost overnight because it was easy and
mostly straightforward.  It also had a lot in common with how I, as a non
developer, already thought and spoke.  Now, you almost have to be a
developer to even start to use perl.

The other major factor that bothers me is that as we add more and more and
more stuff into the mix, perl becomes slower and slower and slower.  At
almost every release (major or minor) perl slows down a couple of percent.
We're told not to worry about, it's only a couple of percent.  But a couple
of percent over several releases equals a lot of percents.  The more we
add, the more we change, the worse this will get.

-spp