Despite being a Perl fanatic (it was, in fact, my first language -- BASIC, shell scripting, and TeX don't count), I have to say I agree that Perl is bad for learning straight-up programming.
That's why I tend not to think of Perl as an actual language. I think of it as a utility. This sounds counter-intuitive, but let me try and explain:
Perl was designed by Larry Wall to be as much like natural language as possible, in order to make it easy to learn, useful, and comfortable for _programmers_. Most languages, IMHO, no matter how high-level, are designed to make some aspect of the _computer's_ "mindset" accessible to the programmer, even at the expense of having to jump through mental hoops to do it. A good example is C: C was written to be portable, yes, but it was also written to "get under the hood" of a machine and allow it's users to do low-level things like (heh), write UNIX. Most languages, I've found, are like this: they use things like (as mentioned) datatypes, that force the programmer to think like a computer. It's hard to get used to, but is ultimately a Good Thing.
Perl, on the other hand, allows a programmer to think like a human, and this is a Good Thing as well, but it IMHO really bars it from being de facto a programming language. It can be used as one, _if you already have the knowledgbe to think like a computer_ -- ie, you understand data types, how memory works, etc, etc, etc, all the things that you pick up in more standard programming languages. Perl makes more sense of you think of it as a meta-utility that can _be_ a language.
(this probably will sound like complete bollocks an hour from now, but that's what 72 hours with no sleep will do to you...)
Speaking as someone who was once a 13 year old girl, I think all these concerns about what's "appropriate" or "readable" are funny. At that age, I'd read Heinlein's Mistress, Childhood's End, Neuromancer, and a lot of other rather 'intense' or 'adult' books.
Trust me, if she wants to start reading sci-fi, there are probably reasons. Rest assured, any 13 year old who's intelligent and cerebral enough to read for pleasure in today's society will have no problem with almost anything you choose to give her.
closed source == GPL violation?
on
Geeks in Suits
·
· Score: 1
actually, last i recall there have been tarballs of the slash source kicking around, but i may have been hallucinating again. while i agree that the/. software should be open source (especially if it's "inspired" by GPLed software), calling the code "stolen" is rather reactionary. after all, if it weren't for code-reuse there wouldn't be much 'open source software'. borrowing, extending, alterating, and adapting old code is a time-honored tradition -- it's just that with OSS/Free software, the right to do this is recognized and protected. it's only amongst the "closed source", proprietary software cultures that you have a notion of code being "stolen": that is, being owned by anyone in particular. isn't OSS supposed to be about freeing us from these stupid notions of "intellectual property"? (moderators: yeah, offtopic, i know. i had to...)
Slashdot Mirror
Despite being a Perl fanatic (it was, in fact, my first language -- BASIC, shell scripting, and TeX don't count), I have to say I agree that Perl is bad for learning straight-up programming.
That's why I tend not to think of Perl as an actual language. I think of it as a utility. This sounds counter-intuitive, but let me try and explain:
Perl was designed by Larry Wall to be as much like natural language as possible, in order to make it easy to learn, useful, and comfortable for _programmers_. Most languages, IMHO, no matter how high-level, are designed to make some aspect of the _computer's_ "mindset" accessible to the programmer, even at the expense of having to jump through mental hoops to do it. A good example is C: C was written to be portable, yes, but it was also written to "get under the hood" of a machine and allow it's users to do low-level things like (heh), write UNIX. Most languages, I've found, are like this: they use things like (as mentioned) datatypes, that force the programmer to think like a computer. It's hard to get used to, but is ultimately a Good Thing.
Perl, on the other hand, allows a programmer to think like a human, and this is a Good Thing as well, but it IMHO really bars it from being de facto a programming language. It can be used as one, _if you already have the knowledgbe to think like a computer_ -- ie, you understand data types, how memory works, etc, etc, etc, all the things that you pick up in more standard programming languages. Perl makes more sense of you think of it as a meta-utility that can _be_ a language.
(this probably will sound like complete bollocks an hour from now, but that's what 72 hours with no sleep will do to you...)
Speaking as someone who was once a 13 year old girl, I think all these concerns about what's "appropriate" or "readable" are funny. At that age, I'd read Heinlein's Mistress, Childhood's End, Neuromancer, and a lot of other rather 'intense' or 'adult' books.
Trust me, if she wants to start reading sci-fi, there are probably reasons. Rest assured, any 13 year old who's intelligent and cerebral enough to read for pleasure in today's society will have no problem with almost anything you choose to give her.
actually, last i recall there have been tarballs of the slash source kicking around, but i may have been hallucinating again. while i agree that the /. software should be open source (especially if it's "inspired" by GPLed software), calling the code "stolen" is rather reactionary. after all, if it weren't for code-reuse there wouldn't be much 'open source software'. borrowing, extending, alterating, and adapting old code is a time-honored tradition -- it's just that with OSS/Free software, the right to do this is recognized and protected. it's only amongst the "closed source", proprietary software cultures that you have a notion of code being "stolen": that is, being owned by anyone in particular. isn't OSS supposed to be about freeing us from these stupid notions of "intellectual property"? (moderators: yeah, offtopic, i know. i had to...)