http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=603062


in reply to Re^3: Golf Challenge: FizzBuzz
in thread Golf Challenge: FizzBuzz

It contributes to the notion of perl being obscure and hard to read. It's not fair, since golf is a game, not a normal way to write code, but it still reinforces stereotypes for outsiders.

Well, "outsiders" sometimes still confuse Perl and CGI, or even web server stuff. Who cares anyway? Some C programmers like to play obfu games too. That doesn't give C a bad reputation, though.

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Re^5: Golf Challenge: FizzBuzz
by merlyn (Sage) on Mar 03, 2007 at 16:07 UTC
    Who cares anyway?
    Managers who are selecting technologies care.

    People who make their living selling corporate america the idea that Perl is a strong architecture choice care.

    So, yes, it matters to me. When the discussion of "Perl vs $other_tech" comes up, and the discussion quickly (and I mean very quickly) devolves to "Oh, Perl is unreadable", and they point to JAPHs and Golf because that's google-able, my heart saddens a bit. Even if we've lost the battle for entirely the wrong reasons, we still lost.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]

      All good points, but personally I think that there are other "reasons" why managers who are selecting technologies may prefer $other_tech to Perl, and they are reasons only in double quotes because they're all mostly related to FUD and misinformation anyway, so that activities like Obfu and Golf may be rather contribute to the phenomenon or be taken as an excuse for the "Oh, Perl is unreadable" pseudo-argument and I don't know how much they would weight in the overall bad reputation that Perl gets in some circles. I expect that the tons of examples alleged to be productive code but sporting bad programming habits that lie around in the net are much worse in this sense. OTOH that unreadable code is google-able doesn't mean that readable one is not: indeed it's easy to show that the latter overnumbers the former by large. If that is their argument, it's easy to counter it.

[reply]
        You're using rational arguments against irrational behavior. It doesn't matter. I'm telling you what the irrational behavior is. People who should know better disproportionally point at Golf and Obfu. That's the sad reality. I'm not saying that if all Golf and Obfu were eliminated, people would flock to Perl in the masses, but they're by far the leading candidates for discrediting Perl. It makes my job very hard.

        And this is a bit ironic, since I invented the JAPH, so I've effectively created my own worst enemy here. {grin}

        -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]

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