[conspire] CABAL meeting, Saturday, Feb. 8th!

[Nick Moffitt]

On 10Feb2020 02:52am (+0000), paulz at ieee.org wrote:
> The link below predicts that no one will be using these languages, at least for work, by 2030.  At one time, I thought I was headed to a career as a Perl monger.  I concede that python has largely replaced it.  People seem to think that getting indents correct is easier than ending statements with";"

Indeed, the fact that Python has succeeded despite the indentation thing is a real testament to its expressiveness and maintainability.

Perl is a perfectly fine language so long as you never have to touch anyone else's code.  Each Perl programming style is unique, making shared projects difficult without a lot of work beforehand.  Semicolons are not what killed Perl, but rather an extension of this:

	https://youtu.be/YX3iRjKj7C0?t=1268

Apologies for the Bob Martin video.  He's problematic in many ways, but the point of the video was the Ward Cunningham quotation.

	In short: "It was just too easy to make a mess."

This was nowhere clearer than in PHP.  I'm sure we've all seen the clawhammer essay, and that's a bit of light fun and captures the experience of doing anything in PHP.  But when you'd explain why you didn't want to use PHP for a particular task, you'd often get one of two smug replies from some accomplished PHP coder:

	"A skilled programmer can do anything in any language."

I used to respond "Sure, Mozart could write grand opera in GERMAN, but does that mean that's the language people should reach for when they're fluent in Italian?"  Saying that an expert could carve a sofa with a redwood trunk and a nail file doesn't make those a reasonable choice of tools. Oh and speaking of "tools"...

	"A poor workman blames his tools."

Oh, honey, I'm not blaming *my* tools...