Ada SJun 22, 2024
should i learn #perl? would that be crazy???
#programming
but of course! The Camel! The Monks!
54.6%
you're never getting employed, are you?
33%
learn perl 6!!!!!!
12.4%
Poll ended at .
Show threadSvante

@adanskana It depends. If it's for fun, or for some concrete opportunity, there can be worse choices. I remember having a lot of fun reading the man pages 20 years ago (»This may seem weird, but that's OK, because it /is/ weird.«).

If it's for resume building or general preparedness, I'd have different ideas.

Jun 23, 2024 at 9:37pmWeb
Show threadAda SJun 24, 2024
@Ardubal I mean, its certainly more for fun than anything else. I have a bit of an obsession with retro computing and yester-year programming languages. My favourite programming language at the moment is Common Lisp, for instance.
I feel like Perl could fill the niche that I want between bash scripting and something heavier like Python. The main draw as well is the ubiquity of Perl; you can find it pretty much anywhere. I want a tool like that.
Show threadSvanteJun 24, 2024
@adanskana Oh, I'm with you on Common #Lisp 🤗 I use it for everything (except at work, where we mostly do Clojure, and script in Babashka).
Show threadAda SJun 24, 2024
@Ardubal it really is the most versatile tool ive ever had the pleasure of using.
also, envious that you get to work with clojure for a living!! so cool :)
Show threadlibrasteveJun 24, 2024
@adanskana @Ardubal - I think that you have put your finger on the most enduring use case of perl - since it is rock solid and everywhere, it remains a very useful CLI tool (and originally came out of an evolution of shell languages, so it is a very natural step from eg bash) ...
Show threadAda SJun 25, 2024
@librasteve @Ardubal right. i think thats why i want to learn #perl rather than #raku. I already have my powerful but mostly obscure and slightly less portable language (common lisp) but i want something that i can treat with almost the same level of ubiquity as bash scripting.