RE: Perl: Survival of the Fittest

[Odud]

Also this kind of cumbersome language discourages experimentation. If I see some interesting Perl on this site or others it is the work of a moment to copy the code and run it. To do the same in COBOL (and many other traditional languages) you need to edit, compile, perhaps link, create the JCL, run the JCL etc.

It slows things down tremendously, although on the positive side perhaps it makes you think more before you act. The death of COBOL is announced every year but I suspect there are still more lines of COBOL in use than all other languages combined.

[JanneVee]

"It slows things down tremendously, although on the positive side perhaps it makes you think more before you act. The death of COBOL is announced every year but I suspect there are still more lines of COBOL in use than all other languages combined."

Of course there are more lines of COBOL than all others combined. You need to write so much code to do the smallest things. The example on Perl vs. COBOL for 80 lines COBOL to 10 lines of Perl. ;)