Re: Perl, the new generation

Stephen P. Potter writes:
> For example, take a look at Camel1.  It was a small book; you could carry
> it around without building up huge biceps.  You could reasonable read it in
> a couple of days and get started with perl.  I tried to get us to maintain
> that in Camel2, but it grew to almost 700 pages.  Camel3 is 1100 pages,
> about a 3 fold increase from Camel1.  I can weightlift with it now.
> Someone looking at that is going to think they have to know all that to be
> effective.

Measuring the complexity of Perl by looking at the size of the Camel
is bogus.

The Camel is a reference book.  Most of the bulk comes from describing
things *better*.  The new stuff in Perl between Camels 2 and 3 is
minute.  The book difference between Camels 2 and 3 is almost entirely
made up of better explanations (e.g., modules and objects), more
information (e.g., regexps described in detail for the first time, the
additional function information in the perlfunc part), and so on.

Nat