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Is Perl Better Than a Randomly Generated Programming Language?

Posted by timothy on from the before-swine dept.

First time accepted submitter QuantumMist writes "Researchers from Southern Illinois University have published a paper comparing Perl to Quorum(PDF) (their own statistically informed programming language) and Randomo (a programming language whose syntax is partially randomly generated). From the paper: 'Perl users were unable to write programs more accurately than those using a language designed by chance.' Reactions have been enthusiastic, and the authors have responded."

4 of 538 comments (clear)

  1. Perl Is way better by PerlJedi · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd have to say PERL is better than a lot of purposefully crafted languages. Its syntax is very forgiving, and there are lots of ways to do most things. Those two components are likely the reason this study came to that conclusion. This in no way means that PERL is not a good language. It does mean that many people can write PERL badly, but many people speak English badly and that doesn't reflect poorly on the language. PERL is, IMO, and should always be: Easy to do, but impossible to do "perfectly". But then I'm not sure that anything can truely be done "perfectly". Things may be done poorly, well, very well, or nearly perfectly, but to claim perfection is to deny the possibility of improvement.

  2. Re:Better? by Smallpond · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yet another ridiculous summary. The study wasn't which language was better, it was in which language can first-time users write a program more accurately. My guess is that Cobol would beat any of the three - it is designed from the ground up to be readable.

  3. Re:Novices learning from whom...? by finnw · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes it was Perl 4, which is one of the flaws in this study.

    --
    Is Betteridge's Law of Headlines Correct?
  4. Re:Novices learning from whom...? by Smallpond · · Score: 5, Informative

    "we did not train participants on what each line of syntax actually did in the computer programs. Instead, participants attempted to derive the meaning of the computer code on their own."

    They were not trained. They were just shown code samples with no explanation. The code samples had 1-letter variable names and no comments. The Perl sample uses $_[0} for getting the first sub argument instead of shift, and "for ($i = $a; $i = $b; $i++)" to do a for loop instead of "foreach $i ($a .. $b)", so it is deliberately obfuscated Perl.