Tag: Perl

Perl 6 re-branding

Curtis “Ovid” Poe, the author of the book “Beginning Perl” and long-time Perl Monk, has this excellent post on the re-branding discussion of Perl 6.

Even though I’m not writing much Perl code these days, I have to admit that the whole Perl 6 thing has been going for years now and I’m one of those many people who were confused by it. In my opinion, Perl 6 is not a continuation of Perl 5 as a version bump (like in Python or PHP), but it is a different language. And as a different language, it should have a different name.

Of the ones mentioned in the blog post, I like the “Raku” the best. But given the negative connotation in some countries, cultures, and languages, “Camelia” seems like a better option.

Regardless of the alternative names, I want the change from “Perl 6” to anything else the sooner, the better.

Programmer migration patterns

“Programmer migration patterns” is an interesting attempt to identify where programmers start and how move from one programming language to another. This is not precise science, obviously. But I have to say that I mostly agree with the findings.

The first language that I learned (back in school) was BASIC, which then gave me some legs with Visual Basic later in college. Also in college, I’ve learned assembler, C, and Pascal, which guided me to some amateur and professional development with Delphi.

Soon after that I discovered Linux, which meant shell scripting. I played with awk, but I didn’t have to dive deep, as Perl was already available. Perl was probably my first true programming language, which I learned outside of school and college, and which I have been using for years to build all kinds of things. I still love Perl dearly, but the last few years I have been mostly using PHP, with some occasional Python.

JavaScript, however, is where I draw the line. I’ve been scarred by JavaScript back in the 90s, so I can’t force myself to go back. And then again, I don’t really have to. I’ll leave JavaScript, TypeScript, and node.js for the younger generations.

Let the source be with you!

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming


I came across the second edition of the Prentice Hall’s “A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming” by Mark G. Sobell (original link).  This is a rather lengthy book at just over 1,000 pages, covering everything from history of Linux and basic commands, all the way to bash, Perl, and sed, and how things work both on the inside and outside.

It’s probably not one of those books to read from cover to cover, but quite handy to keep as a reference and flip a few pages once in a while.




The Slashdot Interview With Larry Wall


Slashdot runs the interview with Larry Wall, the creator of Perl programming language.  There is a wide variety of questions.  Some are technical – about Perl 6, comparison to other programming languages (Python, PHP), Perl in the browser, etc.  Some are more generic – what kind of tools Larry uses, and what are his thoughts on English being lingua franca of the computer world.  The answers are often funny, yet very insightful.