On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 06:15:34PM +0000, Tony van der Hoff wrote: > On 24/12/11 17:34, Vincent Lefevre wrote: > >On 2011-12-24 17:06:38 +0000, Tony van der Hoff wrote: > >>Yep, that's PERL for you. Having taken over the maintenance of a large > >>PERL project, I've come to the conclusion that it's IMHO the worst > >>programming language ever invented. Totally non-intuitive.
To make an analogy: Mandarin, with its tones, is inferior due to the non-intuitive way that minor intonation changes meaning. It is the worst language ever invented. English, with its irregular rules, is inferior to more regular languages. Japanese, with usage that often lacks explicit signals to indicate subject or object is inferior to languages with pointers to this information. Early Christian missionaries believed it was created by the devil to obstruct their good works. German and Hindi, with their complicated cases and genders, are inferior to languages with simpler grammars. All these languages are totally non-intuitive. Esperanto is a great language, simple, regular, easy to learn, but few people use it. Yiddish, now there's a language that is famously expressive, and at one time in history widely understood. What would be the Yiddish of programming languages? The point is, these judgments are largely based on experience, temperament, aesthetics and personal preference. As personal a choice as vim vs. emacs. Have a nice day (and fun learning whatever languages you are drawn to or directed to by your employer.) -- Joel Roth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20111224193202.GB24914@sprite
