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Any known problems with Perl?

by darkmouse_12 (Initiate)
on Nov 11, 2012 at 08:35 UTC ( [id://1003311]=perlquestion: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

darkmouse_12 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I was wondering if any one has any problems when using Perl? I am new to Perl and had been thinking about the question above in case I decide to install and use Perl in the future what to look for and how to resolve such "problem(s)".

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by frozenwithjoy (Priest) on Nov 11, 2012 at 10:03 UTC
    Well, to be honest... yes, there are some pretty significant problems with Perl. Here are the two major ways Perl has caused me strife:
    • The first major problem is that when I started using Perl, I no longer had the drive to play video games. Perl was too much fun and my World of Warcraft gear suffered terribly. As a result, my guild mates stopped asking me to raid dungeons with them. I felt really left out.
    • The other problem is that now I have too much time on my hands. Perl has made it so that I finish all my work too quickly. As a result, I'm getting more done at work, but it looks like I'm doing less since I just sit around watching YouTube videos (that I download using Perl) while my scripts run. Also, I now no longer have an excuse to get out of social engagements since I never have any work that I need to bring home in the evenings or on the weekends.

    So, my advice? Keep away from Perl, because once you start... you won't be able to stop.

      Very nice.. I like this reply...
Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by marto (Cardinal) on Nov 11, 2012 at 10:02 UTC

    Problems may be too much of a subjective term. Some people may see how a feature of tool or product operates as problematic to them, others may disagree. Bugs on the other hand are features when don't behave as they're supposed to. Almost every tool I can think of suffers from bugs, tools which are cross platform have greater potential scope to run into problems (often caused by problems with the underlying OS/tool chain).

    Bugs relating to core Perl can be found at https://rt.perl.org/perlbug/, the overview may be a better place to look to get a breakdown of the number of bugs. CPAN also provides an issue tracker for each module.

    It's worth pointing out that Perl ships as standard with many operating systems (Linux, UNIX, Mac OSX) and also with "enterprise grade" products such as Oracle.

    The good news is that bugs are addressed. Releases detail what changes are made, for example perl5125delta.

    If this doesn't address your question please elaborate.

      Thanks a bunch man. That was quite informative and the links were awesome full of useful information and much more. Thanks again. What are some the most FAQs related to troubleshooting errors and such with Perl?

        We've got a few in our Tutorials section.

        I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16,000 zombies.

        The links here are what you're looking for. If possible you should download perl and do some testing, see if you hit any problems.

Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by rjt (Curate) on Nov 11, 2012 at 09:25 UTC

    Fortunately, at PerlMonks, we do strive to be open-minded, so I'm going to afford you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't trying to stir up a religious debate in our sacred monastery, for $verily, that would be unfortunate. :-)

    That being said, I'm afraid your question is far too broad for me to imagine the universe in which the set of possible answers resides, so let me respond with a question instead, to get a better idea of what you're after:

    Why are you asking this question? Is it for a school report? A project? Ammunition for (or against) bringing Perl into your workplace? Your personal m-ary tree of possible career paths? (My own is more of a circular doubly linked list with 0 < n < 2 nodes, but I digress.)

    Finally, the always faithful Perl Advocacy resources might be of some insight.

    Welcome to PerlMonks. We do hope your stay is enlightening.

      What are some of the more FAQs related to troubleshooting errors with Perl?

        In the Perl documentation, see:

        And if you have access to the Camel Book1, see especially:

        • “The Pursuit of Happiness,” Preface, pp. xxiii–xxvii (on the advantages of using Perl)
        • “Common Goofs for Novices,” Chapter 21. Common Practices, pp. 679–691
        • Chapter 22. Portable Perl, pp. 721–730

        Hope that helps,

        1Tom Christiansen, brian d foy & Larry Wall with Jon Orwant, Programming Perl (4th Edition, O’Reilly, 2012).

        Athanasius <°(((><contra mundum

Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by davido (Cardinal) on Nov 12, 2012 at 05:50 UTC

    I can't think of any programming language devoid of problems, and don't expect one to exist before Christmas.


    Dave

      ... but by New Year's, right?

      Please! I mean, you were probably kidding about Christmas, I guess, since there's usually a little slippage, but by New Year's would be just fine.

Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by karlgoethebier (Abbot) on Nov 11, 2012 at 15:37 UTC

    I had some (rather unknown) problems - in sequence:

    Some years ago i had a piece of code that went through perl -c as OK but was syntactically wrong. I'm still annoyed about myself that i didn't keep this snippet. Perhaps i could have sold it on ebay because something is very rare.

    Some days ago i run into a problem with a module that is new to me. The issue was solved with the help of the monks.This vicar found the bug, provided a patch to me and reported the bug to the maintainers of the module. So i could continue, the module got better and my knowledge about scoping in perl was refreshed. Please note: First answer in less than 10 minutes (was my first post!). This is a better performance as many "commercial" helpdesks provide.

    I'm using perl for some years but still have no full understanding of it. But must i really?. And perhaps this is more a problem of me.

    Some time ago someone (mostly doing java/C++) provided a perl daemon for measuring network throughput (with a java applet as frontend). A real cool tool but that daemon forked my machine to death. I couldn't figure out why. But i assume it was more a problem of this guy and his use of perl. He fixed the issue silently in the next release.

    Same observation with emctl, a tool that comes with Oracle and uses perl. Oracle helpdesk had no solution for this within two month or so. My solution was to turn it of and do the dumps by hand. I also assume that this issue was more a problem of the guys which perpetrated the code.

    More than this five i don't remember. So i still feel good with perl and rely on it and it's community.

    Best Regards and just try2perl, Karl

    «The Crux of the Biscuit is the Apostrophe»

Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by jdporter (Chancellor) on Nov 12, 2012 at 02:31 UTC

    No, there are no problems with Perl.

    I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16,000 zombies.

      I do have lots of problems with Perl! Few of my scripts work correctly! And then I have to fix them. Usually the logic was written all wrong, or didn't handle a corner case. It's all Perl's fault.

      (The other programming languages I've tried have the exact same problem. What a drag.)

Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Nov 12, 2012 at 01:45 UTC

    The main problem is that Perl is dead!

    …is what you would have heard if the Python and Java hackers anti-Perl trolls were responding today. But I keed! No, seriously though, Java does eat babies.

Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by grondilu (Friar) on Nov 11, 2012 at 15:01 UTC

    To me the main problem with Perl is that Perl6 is not fully implemented yet.

    I'm not really trying to be sarcastic here. I really mean it. Perl5 is great but it is seriously getting old now. Now that I've started learning perl6, each time I write some Perl5 code, I really miss many of the cool features of perl6.

    A typical example are ranges. In Perl6 when you want to write the integers from 0 to $n-1, you can type ^$n. Once you get used to such a shortcut, it's tough to keep yourself from using it.

      you know, you can program your editor to fix it for you :) </duck>
Re: Any known problems with Perl?
by Anonymous Monk on Nov 11, 2012 at 09:21 UTC
    Ask again when you make a decision :)

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