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Comment by DHowett | Hacker News Reader

I understand what you're getting at, but...

    A new admin comes along in 3 years time, and doesn't know the difference(...)

...just makes it feel like you're optimizing for the lowest common intelligence.

It's not a mark on the language but rather one on the understanding of your potential successor. Would the same sysadmin who is unfamiliar with [[ vs [, or $ vs @, be handily equipped to do common system administration tasks? Rebuild a degraded software RAID array? Troubleshoot a faulty network interface? Chances are comparatively slim.

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Sorry but sounds awfully arrogant.

Lowest common intelligence? Sounds like anyone unfamillar with perl is stupid.

Perl is very different from other languages an has a very special syntax. The only way to REALLY understand perl is reading and writting lots of perl code from different authors.

In perl nearly every problem can be solved in many different ways.

If you are used to one style of perl you might still have trouble understanding the code someone else wrote.

> Lowest common intelligence? Sounds like anyone unfamillar with perl is stupid.

No, someone who uses things they don't understand without looking at the documentation is stupid. One could similarly make such comments about the user interfaces of vi or emacs, and get the justified response to RTFM. Only in programming languages is RTFM apparently not expected.

> The only way to REALLY understand perl is reading and writting lots of perl code from different authors.

No, the way to understand Perl is to read the documentation. There is nothing special to Perl about this and the same applies to any language. Just look for example at how many blog posts are written to explain with() and decorators in Python.

> In perl nearly every problem can be solved in many different ways.

The same is true for any language.

> If you are used to one style of perl you might still have trouble understanding the code someone else wrote.

Only if you don't read the documentation.

> someone who uses things they don't understand without looking at the documentation is stupid

I disagree, that's sometimes the best way to learn something. I learnt C, Java and Perl just by ploughing in without reading anything. Change something, see what happens, if it doesn't make sense ask Google.

Also programming languages aside, I never read computer game manuals before playing

If you'll allow me a bit of pedanty, that's learning and playing, not using. :)

I learned Perl the same way and play my games the same way, but when i write code that'll be used for anything that isn't frivolity, out comes the documentation to ensure the code doesn't destroy cash (or worse, lives) by the fistful.

Good point. If someone's life depended on it, I probably would read the Street Fighter manual, just in case

I've met plenty of competent sysadmins who could definitely rebuild a degraded software RAID array or troubleshoot a faulty network interface, but didn't know perl.

I've watched people who didn't know python edit existing python scripts and make the change they wanted. To be fair, I've seen the same thing happen with well-written perl scripts - but only the kind that don't use [[ vs [ or the hundreds of random $* variables.

> [[ vs [

What does that even mean?

Thanks for the last bit though. Perl has been in heavy use since the late 80s and a LOT of shitty legacy Perl has been written, while the Modern Perl renaissance only started in 2005. Many people still think all Perl looks like legacy Perl 4 style code and it's an image that's been hard to get rid of.

>it's an image that's been hard to get rid of.

Maybe because Perl 6 adds even more obscure and magical operators?

http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/periodic/

Perl 6 has nothing whatsoever to do with Perl 5 v18. Perl 6 cannot even execute code written for Perl 5 v18 (or any previous versions of Perl 5). It's a different language.

However, people don't care to look and judge books by their cover, so you're probably right that it's a part of the reason.

I don't see anything magical in there? Looks like a good set of useful/powerful operators to me.

I think many perl advocates try to have their cake and eat it - they talk about the power and conciseness that perl's short operators allow, and then also claim that you can write maintainable code in perl by using english function names, strict mode and so on. Both claims are mostly true, but you can't do both in the same piece of code.

I'm glad you're so impressed with your knowledge of network and computer janitoring you can look down on others so easily.

You are the reason why people hate dealing with IT.

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