Slashdot Mirror
Ask Larry Wall
About what? Perl is probably a good topic choice. No one knows more about Perl than Larry Wall, right? We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Larry by email, and post his answers when we get them back. Note: Due to Slashdot's line length restrictions, lines of code over 50 characters long may not display correctly. Please be aware of this if you include code samples in your question.
What do you think about the argument that Perl is a good language for small/medium sized websites and Java/J2EE is what should be used for large enterprise websites??
What language do you use when you're not using Perl?
PDHoss
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
If given the chance, what 10 questions would you ask yourself?
42
Thus I worry that perl has Python-envy. I've tried to use python several times but always go back to perl. The reason is my daily need for a parser dominates my choice of language and maintains my fluency, since I dont want to have to be fluent in both, perl becomes my language of choice for advanced tasks too, even though python might be better for strcutrued programming.
So my question is, is perl 6 making make perl a structued language like python? Would it be a good idea if perl did not develop any further for fear of becoming too complicated and thus disorganized. (witness the evolution of java from clean slate to giant mess with intricate redundant libraries half of which are deprecated).
What would you say has been the number one requested feature that you will not put into Perl 6, and why not?
What are your thoughts on these other scripting languages? What do you like about them, what do you dislike?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
At the college level, the programming classes are taught using C,C++,Java, etc. Do you see a place for perl being taught in the classroom? I find that it is often overlooked and dismissed as simply a scripting language.
Don't pet the burning dog
What is your opinion of .NET in general and Perl's role in it? Given that .NET supports Perl as one of the languages would you recommend actually using it for any projects? Do you see good future for this tandem?
That was what I wanted to ask, actually. I was wondering if I could have a date with your daughter, Heidi.
Thanks.
Hi Larry,
Like many others, I *love* Perl. I use it both professionally and personally. You've not only helped make my career, but also given me a very pleasent past-time. I was wondering what I can do to say thank-you? Can we give you money? Dontate something to someone, etc.?
When the new Programming Perl came out, I didn't really need anymoe (viva perldoc!), but wanted to make sure I was putting a few bucks in the pockets of those who made Perl great. What else can I do to say thanks?
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
perl 1-5 have been great UNIX configuration/management languages. This includes small-scale webserver platforms. It's very difficult to find any other language that is as versitile in this respect where it reigns in it's niche. It is the perfect combination of speed, power, simplicity and huffman encoding (especially given the co-UNIX-tools look-and-feel).
Perl 6 on the other hand, changes this formula around; favoring a more general solution that potentially reduces performance (due to abstractions), and deviates substantially from the UNIX-family-syntax - Namely: c-ish-syntax ( colon, question mark, select, exception-handling, etc), awk/sedish reg-ex's, raw c-libray-wrappers, etc. It was these very similarities that made learning and accepting perl so trivial since learning CIS and UNIX administration was sufficient to master perl in 2 days.
My question is: does perl 6 have a niche in mind? Or is it spreading itself too thinly; competing more and more against Java/python/C# and thus losing it's identifiable niche?
-Michael
What is your favourite quote? (*coughsigcough*)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Polymorphism is the key to OOP. Its what makes everything reusable, and melds everything together in a program.
Most OO fans will say something like "X is the key to OOP". Yet X is always different. X has been "composition", "patterns", "inheritance", "abstraction", "reuse", "encapsulation", "modeling noun interaction", etc. etc. etc.
I would like to ask Larry what he *feels* about OOP rather than what Perl does with it. If you want to know what OOP features Perl has, then RTFM.
Please, don't waste questions on stuff that you can find by RTFM.
(oop.ismad.com)
Table-ized A.I.
At that time, there was no credible competition to Perl in any of the niches it basically created. These days, there is more competition than I can comfortably list. Indeed, if I were choosing a language like Perl today, I would be very, very tempted to choose Ruby instead, and I am not the only Perl programmer who feels this way. Interestingly, Perl6 is beginning to look and feel a lot more like Ruby. Are there indeed aspects of Ruby that you were deliberately trying to have in Perl6? Are there any aspects of Ruby you are especially wary of?
Babar
One of the features I really miss in perl is a clean way to pre-compile
scripts. Both to speedup loading times and to byte-[en]code to program.
There is perlcc, which really isn't supported as a production tool and doesn't take
modules into account.
What do you think about technologies like Zend?
Is this really a issue for perl? or just a matter of time?
Larry,
As a fellow Christian (I'm sure that revelation won't get me mod points) I must say that I have really appreciated your 'State of the Onion' speeches over the years. Thanks for showing that Christians can think and that we don't all mindlessly follow a 'televangelist' religion.
Now for the question:
Why do you think that the geek/tech community is so anti-Christian and what can we do to help change their negative stereotypes of Christians? Why is it that so many in this community feel that being a 'Thinking Christian' is an oxymoron? People like Knuth and yourself show that Christians can think and make contributions in the technical world.
I tend to believe that the anti-Christian bias has some justification - meaning that Christians have often not displayed the grace which the Founder displayed and taught us to live in. What is it that Ghandi said when asked about Christianity? "Christianity I like, but it's those Christians that I'm not sure about". I also suspect that the anti-intellectualism of the pop-televangelists that is unfortunately so visible bears much of the blame (often when I come across one of those so-called Christian TV shows I think I'm looking at some kind of religious mutation and when I realize that these folks claim to believe the same things I do, I wince).
I think you'll find your answer here... http://www.wall.org/~heidi/