[NCLUG] Looking at programming languages...

[Sean Rees]

> Eh?  In my limited experience, the actual syntax is stupid, and the
> error messages are terrible.  (Don't ask me to elaborate, though, it's
> been a while.)  I was underwhelmed, it looked like another hack job, a
> "doctoral dissertation", where, like ksh, the features were cool and you
> couldn't help wanting to use the tool, but you'd always hate the lack of
> "end user friendliness," the purposeful or mindless snobbery of the
> authors.  You know, "This is good enough for me, I like it, what's your
> problem?  No one is forcing you to use it."  What I call "software
> macho."

You might want to try Ruby again. I'm only familiar with the later
releases (1.8.x and up) and have found that it has an inviting and
flexible syntax (without encouraging the(/ so many) bad practices you
mentioned Perl) and a decent core and standard library set to get most
basic things done. Ruby is the language I look to first when I don't
have requirements pushing me elsewhere. We can about this offline
though, if you're interested.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that while there is no shortage of
incredibly difficult Perl to read, there is no reason that Perl code
can't be written with the clarity of almost any other language.

-sr.

Sean Rees
irc: eri, magician | +o/snowdrift.esper.net (http://www.esper.net)