Re: [tlug] shell question

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Viktor" == Viktor Pavlenko <vvp@example.com> writes:

    Viktor> Isn't it amazing how expressive perl is?

"Yes", "no", and "not any more".

"Yes", the iterate-over-matching-lines idiom is an example of the kind
of expression I'd never really thought about until I saw dozens of
them collected in one language, and that language was Perl, and that
was no accident.

"No", there are lots of things I personally want to express that Perl
made it hard to express at the time I learned Python (objects,
functional programming).  I think Perl now has standard ways to
express most of them, but at least the way they're used in Debian
package infrastructure is for to puke.  (NB Simon says he pukes too,
so apparently that says more about Debian than about Perl.)

"Not any more", after hearing lw and a couple of other senior perlfolk
talk (including our own Simon), I realized that I've seen similarly
expressive stuff in other languages, and that one of the design
principles of perl is to collect as many of them as possible.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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