Re^3: Perl for big projects

[swampyankee]

Spiritway hit most of my points, so I'll try not step on his toes (although it's "toe the line" and "pedal to the metal").

I've no idea what your native language is nor do I have a good grasp of your fluency in English. However, most of your criticisms of English apply to other natural languages. Spelling? French spelling, while more regular than English, has very little to do with the phonetics, and is also irregular. It's also chock full of idioms. Modern Italian has quite regular spelling: it should, it was made up in the 19th century from the dialect used in Florence. In reality, Italian has numerous dialects, many of which are mutually incomprehensible (my grandparents were Piemontese; my mother in law is Neapolitan; they couldn't have spoken to each other in "Italian;" Piemontese and Neapolitan are mutually incomprehensible. These native Italian speakers would have to talk to each other in English.).

Once upon a time, English spelling was phonetic. English changed. Yes, cough, hiccough, and through once rhymed. The "k" in knee was pronounced, "thou" was the 2d person familar (like "tu" in French), and all was right in the world (and "right" and "rite" were pronounced differently). French has also changed with time; so has Spanish. Norwegian has two official forms and several unofficial forms.(see Norwegian_language).

Yes, English may be a mess, but as a natural language it's in good company: even the worst specified computer language is orders of magnitude less messy than the least messy of the natural languages.