[geeks] Go Apple....

[jodys at helluin.org]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2002 at 07:03:22PM -0400, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Monday, July 29, 2002 at 16:44:50 (-0600), jodys at helluin.org wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: [geeks] Go Apple....
> >
> > That is just harsh, perl has always been a win in some
> > cases, or no one would use it.
> 
> No, it's not even near harsh enough, and no, perl is never really a win.
> 
> Everything perl can do something else can do cleaner and/or better.

True, but thats not what I'm saying. There is time when pure speed
of programming is more important than correctness. Ideally these
programs would be used once. If you start using it more than you
need to rewrite it to be robust, correct, and all around better.

> 
> > It's not like their
> > is a insidious perl conspiracy that brainwashes new 
> > unix users into only using perl.
> 
> You don't need an insidious conspiracy to still brainwash people into
> using something like perl.  My point is/was that the type of people who
> are perl programmers don't want to write good, clean, maintainable
> code.  They cheer Conway when he describes the insidious features that
> make a program such as SelfGOL possible to write in chicken scratches
> that even make a TECO user sigh with sadness.

Well yeah, bad programmers are bad programmers. If you don't pay
attention to what your doing you are going to write bad code. On
the other hand there is something downright pleasurable in 
writing some task in obfuscated perl (not that I've ever done
it for a job, just personally). 

> 
> > Finally anyone who writes more than 300 lines in
> > one perl program, needs to drop the keyboard,
> > come out with his hands up, and taken to the
> > proper authorities. :)
> 
> On that we agree, but I'd put the limit down around two lines,
> especially if they're the kind of lines one finds in SelfGOL.

Well, two lines of perl ain't that bad, cause it does something
simple, 300 lines means your trying to do something hard and
using perl is just masochistic in that sense.

Jody