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Interviews: Ask Perl Creator Larry Wall a Question
Larry Wall created the Perl programming language (as well as the Unix utility patch, and the Usenet client rn ). This Christmas saw the release of Perl 6 -- a "sister" language to the original Perl -- that's also free and open source, after 15 years of development. Now Larry has agreed to give some of his time to answer your questions (joking that "I doubt my remarks will be quite as controversial as, say, Donald Trump's, but I suspect I could say an interesting thing or two...")
Larry also gave Slashdot's very first interview back in 2002 -- so it's high time we had him back for more heartfelt and entertaining insights. Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per comment. (And feel free to also leave your suggestions for who Slashdot should interview next.) We'll pick the very best questions -- and forward them on to Larry Wall himself.
Larry also gave Slashdot's very first interview back in 2002 -- so it's high time we had him back for more heartfelt and entertaining insights. Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per comment. (And feel free to also leave your suggestions for who Slashdot should interview next.) We'll pick the very best questions -- and forward them on to Larry Wall himself.
Why is the syntax of perl so bad? It lends itself to scripts that even the authors can't understand after a week or two.
As a linguist, you surely have some thoughts to share on the English language predominance in the IT field (as well as many others). Do you think that it may somewhat shape the way programming languages are designed, as well as IT infrastructures and ultimately our societies, in comparison of what it would be if we would use a no-nation-native language such as Esperanto? By the way, did you know Perligata[1] and Babylscript[2]?
[1] http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata.html/
[2] http://www.babylscript.com/
Why has perl6 flopped?
And "I don't think it has" is not a valid answer.
What do you think about Python . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Perl is proven to be fundamentally broken. Here are two very entertaining videos about how to exploit weird array casting, hashes and so on.
I really think every perl programmer should have seen it.
https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_...
https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-71...
What do you say about this criticism and the exploited flaws?
Why would you encourage someone to learn perl? (Compared to other programming languages, feel free to just give a general "reason" for perl, or an actual comparison).
Which large companies are still using Perl in production? I can name Booking.com, but do you know any others?
I'm a big fan of Perl and still use it when I can for various personal projects and have been known to introduce it in official work-related tasks (where engineers were using batch files or shell scripts, etc.). I love Perl's terseness and flexibility. I learned regex from Perl in my first development job and it has stuck with me through a dozen different languages.
However, as many others have mentioned, it is falling out of favor, and in fact there are very few development shops that even have a need or desire for it. I've looked for Perl jobs and they rarely come up. It seems that most back-ends are now being written in any number of next-gen scripting languages like Python, JavaScript (NodeJS), and Swift. I don't see the advantages of these, but it's often hard to explain to colleagues, CTOs, managers, etc. the value of Perl over the newest trends. And Perl "6" is meaningless because to everyone else it's still Perl. Why should we choose Perl 6 over the new establishment?
Can you give us a glimpse into what your main work computer looks like? What's the hardware and OS, your preferred editor and browser, and any crucial software you want to give a shout-out to?
I expect much of that is due to the rise of Cheap and Free quality database systems.
Back in the 1990's during Perl's hay day. Database systems were really expensive Thousand of dollars for a bad one, Tens of thousands for a decent one and hundreds of thousands for a good one. Then they were mostly required to run on beefy hardware at the time. Filling up Gigs of storage and using hundred of megs of RAM. Using Perl to process your text/data files made it possible to make these data driven sites run well without such overhead.
Now 20 years later, A low end Computer has the power to run Databases, You can get a really good Database system for under $1k or even Free. Now your data be processed quicker and with more safeguards from data corruption.
Perl was designed for processing text. It did it well... Today we don't need so much of that.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1. According to most metrics Perl 5 usage hasn't decreased but there is a perception problem indicating it has. Perl usage outstrips python by a lot but many think the opposite is true. Why do you think this perception exists? Is it related to calling the new language Perl 6 giving people the false impression that Perl 5 hasn't progressed as dramatically as it has in the past few years?
2. As a Perl 5 programmer, why should I care about Perl 6? Perl is most used by sysadmins and Perl 5 of some sort can be found on all major *nix distributions out of the box. Without this support Perl 6 might as well not even exist for this group who already have to code for Perl versions a decade out of date in many cases. How, if at all, do you see Perl 6 resolving this problem or do you see Perl 6 hitting a different base altogether?
I'd like to express my deep, unending thanks for building something that is really wonderful, Perl, and a wonderful community. I made a living with Perl, the first postmodern language of which I am aware, and derived a lot of enjoyment from TMTOWTDI, and contributed back to the community on Perl Monks at the time. It was a lot of fun to meet some of the famous, talented Perl visionaries then. I enjoy thinking in Perl and it has made me stronger.
I'd like to get into Perl 6 which having stolen all the cool stuff from the other languages appears likely to be the most advanced and artistic of all them. At the very least I look forward to being able one day to think in Perl 6.
Can you provide some examples to /. readers about why you like Perl 6, and what dimensions of awesomeness are waiting beyond Python and Javascript? I think you would be a good person to rouse a wakeup call.
That, and if you have a moment, how about a good reason or three (efficiency? creativity? extensibility? ability to suggest further growth? having lots of PhDs?) why Google should promote Perl 6 in-house and support the growth of the Perl 6 language and implementations. Perhaps sponsor completion of the Perl 6 kernel for Jupyter project? How about sponsor some people to document and make accessible free books? What are some Perl 6 initiatives that could use some eyes if not $$?
Hi Larry, As a long time perl hacker, and contributor of various modules to CPAN I'm wondering what the rational was behind the major syntax changes in perl 6? I've read various items trying to explain it, but none so far have done a very good job. Admittedly I haven't fully grasp perl 6 yet (mostly because it involves learning a new language I thought I knew well).