Perl's Glory Days Are Behind It, But It Isn't Going Anywhere

snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia waxes philosophical about Perl stagnancy in IT. 'A massive number of tools and projects still make the most out of the language. But it's hard to see Perl regaining its former glory without a dramatic turnaround in the near term. As more time goes by, Perl will likely continue to decline in popularity and cement its growing status as a somewhat arcane and archaic language, especially as compared to newer, more lithe options. Perhaps that's OK. Perl has been an instrumental part of the innovation and technological advancements of the last two decades, and it's served as a catalyst for a significant number of other languages that have contributed heavily to the programming world in general.'"

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also find this TMTOWTDI (There's more than one way to do it) philosophy frustrating. I did Perl for a year, wrote clear but slow progs, went to usenet for advice, got a first prog half as long and twice as fast, then a second... and at the end of the line a great one-liner that was plain impossible to understand.

You are not supposed to understand the code. You are supposed to hail the awesome programmer who wrote it. :-)

Re:Wait, what?

[muon-catalyzed]

>You are not supposed to understand the code

Right, that is because Perl is the only language whose code looks the same before and after RSA encryption.