Perl is too blankety-blank easy!

[samizdat]

I know, I know, that's the point of a programming language, but Perl goes too @#$%!!!! far.

I powered up my Windows system at work this am, and the first thing I see after logging in is four alert boxes (bonk! bonk! bonk! bonk!) telling me that a whole bunch of ClearCase VOBs are mounted. I recall that, when I'm working from home, I get a monster CC error window because the CC server connection check happens before I can log into work's VPN. Said error window happens after several looooong timeouts, naturally.

The point of this rant is a simple one. It's so easy to add features to Perl scripts that it's easy to become obnoxious and pushy and act like your software is the most important thing on the box.

Some days it may be, but other days it sure gets in the way! Think twice before putting yourself on Front Street. :D

[Limbic~Region]

samizdat,
I think perl is too easy for a different reason. That reason is best left to a meditation of its own but I will summarize here.

Perl allows too many incompetent non-programmers write working^* code without forcing them to grow as a programmer.

One can argue the merits of the above statement, both for and against, until they are blue in the face. That is the reason why it would be better served as its own meditation.

* For some definitions of working

[samizdat]

Now THAT's a meditation I will gladly chime in on, but not in this thread. Welcome back, L~R, we've missed you. :)

As a follow-on to my original rant^H^H^H^Hposting, let me say that I'll also bet good money that the examples I presented are more likely "features" added by requirements dictated by some creatures other than programmers. We do it often enough to ourselves that my point is still valid, but I should give brickbats where brickbats are actually usually due.

Bearing in mind that the current corporate owner of the aforementioned software is well known (for longer than most of us have been programming) for being really full of its own self-importance, and yet is still successfully in business, we might conclude that being obnoxious is good for the bottom line, but I really hope we won't.

[wjw]

Agreed about that meditation... I can imagine there would be some animated responses.. :-)

[graff]

It's so easy to add features to Perl scripts that it's easy to become obnoxious and pushy and act like your software is the most important thing on the box.

But then, once you trip over yourself in such a situation, isn't it also the case that it's usually very easy to tweak said Perl scripts so that they play nice, do the right thing, make difficult things possible, etc etc?

I don't know what ClearCase VOBs are, or what they have to do with perl scripts or ease of programming, but if there's a script that's causing trouble for you, there's probably just a couple extra lines of code you could add so that it still does what you want it to do, without causing that trouble.

Of course it's possible that a given coding style would be, for some reason, an obstacle to that sort of easy repair, but that's more a matter of the programmer's chosen coding style -- okay, blame Perl for allowing that programmer to believe that the chosen style was "okay", in the sense that it "worked" (the first few times)...

But is that really Perl's fault? Many consider Perl's tolerant, forgiving nature a feature rather than a problem; on balance, the benefit tends to outweigh the risk, and when you end up on the wrong end of that balance, you just have to learn. And learning is good, right? Go on, admit it: your experience has made you a better programmer, hasn't it?

[samizdat]

Oh, come on, graff. Do you have to mess up a good whiny childish <RANT> by being serious and helpful??? ;-D

ClearCase is an app that appears to be mostly built of Perl. Unfortunately, it's also hosted on 'Doze, and, of course, that leads to even more problems. We're supposed to use it for source code control but we can't even access it most of the time... but that's another <RANT> on another listserv...