Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming,

Happy New Year from Wales.

You asked:

May I know if Perl is still in vogue?
Should I start learning Perl?

There is Perl and what used to be called Perl6, which is now called Raku. This is an email list for Raku, aka Perl 6.

Lets start with 'vogue-ness'.

When I was a student, FORTRAN was the main language for science, and COBOL was for finance. When I first set up an intranet for KPMG in their Moscow office, Perl 5 had just appeared and it was THE internet language. Since then many languages have come into fashion, and Python, JAVA, and Go seem to me to be widespread, whilst C remains incredibly important. You can find listings of popular languages on the internet.

However, consider that once a piece of software has been written in a language, transferring it 100% to another language is very difficult. Transferring about 95% is easy, but it is the rare cases that are difficult to get right. So companies with huge investments in software systems written in COBOL, Fortran, and Perl do not want to change the language, and they look for programmers who can maintain these software systems. Even though most programmers hate COBOL as a language (it is now old, but in its day was ground-breaking), COBOL programmers get high salaries from big companies with large software investments.

The same is even more true of Perl. Perl continues to be a good language, with VERY many modules and new ones being written, with VERY many companies relying on existing software systems based on Perl.

So does 'in vogue' mean what is fashionable today, but discarded tomorrow, or does it mean something for which there is a massive and continuing demand? Note that here I am trying to distinguish between volatile 'fashion' and what is in demand, which is an aspect of being 'in vogue'.

It might easily be true that programmers are paid more if they have skills in languages with large installed bases, but which are out of fashion! The reason is that languages 'in fashion' attract many young people, who are taught these languages in schools and colleges. So the population of junior programmers with 'in fashion' skills is large. Programmers with older language skills are rarer, so they get paid more.

So if you are looking for a language to serve you in a career, then do not look at 'fashion', but look at the installed base. In which case Perl is a very good choice.

More important for a good programmer, though, is to learn the "Way" or "Art" of programming because various techniques for writing good software are applied in any different languages. Essential to good programming is testing, and particularly unit testing. I only started to use unit tests as part of the way I develop software quite late in my career. It is so easy to dismiss it as extra admin, rather than an essential way of thinking about the results generated by software. Also, things like program structure, naming variables and code elements in a self-documenting manner, differentiating between inheritance and code re-use, and so on are vital for good progamming.

Raku (previously known as Perl 6) is an excellent choice of language to learn because it has been designed to make good programming techniques easy. Once you have mastered important software techniques in Raku, you can then employ them in other settings.

At one time, I had to write in Java (for Android apps) and C (embedded systems), but for all my own tasks I used Raku. At the time Raku was very slow to compile (that is getting much better), but the ease with which I could write a small script to do a complex thing in a way that is easy to understand and debug is unmatched (I think) by any other language.

Raku is still at the forefront of language design, with its ability to handle Unicode (eg., you can name your variables in simplified or traditional Chinese script), grammars, concurrent programming, and several other areas. Why is Raku not more widespread? Probably because it does not have a big company sponsoring its development, and advertising it.

So short responses to your questions:

Is Perl 'in vogue' in the meaning of is it fashionable? Is that a good question to be asking? The answer is 'Perl is not as fashionable as it once was'. But are you asking because you only want to follow fashion, or are you asking to see how best to develop yourself in your career, or as a programmer. Is Perl in vogue because it is widely used, then yes Perl is in vogue.

Is Raku fashionable? If you look at the quality of the people in the Raku community, and their experience with other languages, and when you consider the types of things that interest computer scientists and being implemented in Raku, then 'yes, Raku is fashionable'. But if by fashionable, you mean what is being hyped by influencers, or companies with money trying to get you locked into their products, then 'no, Raku is not fashionable'.

Should you learn Perl and Raku, then 'yes because it will benefit you in your career and as a programmer'.

Hope this helps.

On 01/01/2022 09:42, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:
Subject: Should I start learning Perl?

Good day from Singapore,

I am thinking of learning Perl. May I know if Perl is still in vogue?
Should I start learning Perl?

I am looking forward to your replies.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming
Targeted Individual in Singapore
1st Jan 2022 Saturday

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