Jolt Country

I am learning Perl for a project I am doing at work. So far... and I am really hesitant to say this, because I could have a 180 degree spin on it tomorrow (or flip-flop between apoplectic rage and incredible joy ala GTA3) it does not seem to suck very badly.

The only languages I have been able to say that about, previously, were Inform and Hugo. (I should note that I didn't write any TADS code when Mike and I collaborated. So my sentence isn't a thinly veiled shot at TADS; I just never learned it.)

I'm learning it in a Unix environment, and the fact that support to run any Unix command is there and so easy to invoke is really neat. I presume this is the same for the Windows version of Perl. If there were a way to presto-changeo turn Perl programs into an .exe form then, well... well, that's a kind of power that I just don't know if I'm ready to handle just yet.



(On a completely different note, two applications for the Python scripting language have appeared to me lately -- modding Freedom Force, and getting stats off Yahoo's (really ESPN's) site for text adventure fantasy baseball. Not since Logo have I been introduced to a language with as much cool going for it right off the bat.)

You might look for the "B" and "O" modules.

Dunno if they work under Windows. Probably require cygwin anyway, but then you should be using cygwin, anyway.

Adam

I hate perl.

It's a fully-functioning language with nearly limitless flexibility, and excellent perl programmers can get amazing amounts of stuff done in an amazingly short periods of time.

BUT.

It is a "write once, read NOWHERE" language. It basks in its own confuscation, and given perl programmers' tendencies to want to revel in their ability to write code nobody can read, the problem is naught but exacerbated.

It is good for writing one-offs which will do their job and which nobody else will have to maintain.

For full lifecycle applications that plan to remain active and be enhanced any significant time into the future, it (if I may put this somewhat less than delicately) SUCKS.

I am also BITTER about perl because I never got good at it.

This is good information that I am not privy to at work or while receiving instruction.

In my professional career so far I have written code with exactly zero other persons. In fact, they keep me here like some form of maiden-violating bridge troll: I close the office door, I tell my two bosses what I did on Friday, I occasionally send out e-mails stating that my programs are finished.

But I cannot STAND to read code where it is obvious that the programmer is more concerned with cramming as many different things on a single line than anything else. I perhaps take it to an extreme (I think that the scourge.hug source code that I released a while back demonstrates this) but dammit, it is at least maintainable.