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First of all, I program for fun! This obviously yields a very different story than when you have to "get the job done".

The objectives I have when I write vary a lot, but usually include one or more of:

Use of some specific language features I want to explore
Some abstract "beauty" criteria (which may have nothing to do whatsoever with readability)
Occasionally complexity or obfuscation
Shortness (especially when golfing, but in regular code I'm also opposed to verbosity)
Elegance of the external interface
Speed optimization (when I'm in the mood; rather than when it's useful to do so)

About two months ago I decided that perl was a useful thing to know. I already knew heaps of different languages before i learnt perl (REALbasic, C, C++, Objective C, FORTH, PPC assembly, PostScript, HyperCard, Frontier, AppleScript, INTERCAL, Unlambda, and bits and pieces of other languages like Java, Scheme and Prolog) so I was able to learn perl quickly from the manpages (including perldelta to check on the latest features ofcourse :-)

While learning perl I got involved in some perl-golf sessions on irc. Soon after that I started doing real stuff (co-authored Attribute::Property, joined perlmonks, wrote Data::XDumper, and wrote this reply to your meditation.

In reply to Re: Why I learn a language. by xmath
in thread Why I learn a language. by blackstarr

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