Re: Perl, the new generation

Dave Storrs writes:
> < SARCASM=EXTREME>

Everyone, please try to stop the downhill descent of the conversation.
This is not just Dave, but others in the thread too.

I'm trying to understand what people fear, and why they fear it, so
that I know how to respond.  Ridiculing, inflaming, or exaggerating
those fears don't make them go away.

It sounds like the concern is that each new version of Perl adds
features, which programmers use.  To be able to maintain or extend
code, you need to know those features.  Thus, the core knowledge for
survival in Perl, is ever-growing.

In some ways I agree with this.  In particular, the growing number of
modules with an OO interface means that knowing how to use objects is
more and more important.

But at the same time, if you're a lone programmer, there's nothing in
Perl that forces you to use closures or write your code in modules, or
anything like that.  Those features are there if you need 'em, but if
you don't, you're okay.

If you work in a team, then the bar is raised to the union (not the
intersection) of everyone's knowledge.  But team programming is not
for small trivial tasks, and if you're solving large complex tasks
then it's unsurprising that you'd need some of the more advanced
features of Perl.

So I guess I don't see it as that big a problem.  Am I missing
something?

Nat