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Perl's decline was cultural

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393 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | 06 Dec 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.194s | source
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mmastrac ◴[06 Dec 25 18:11 UTC] No.46175303[source]▶
In fairness, Perl died because it was just not a good language compared to others that popped up after its peak. Sometimes people just move to the better option.
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atherton94027 ◴[06 Dec 25 18:20 UTC] No.46175376[source]▶
There was so much complexity hidden behind "do what I mean". For example, scalar vs array context which was super subtle:

  my @var = @array  # copy the array
  my $var = @array  # return the count of elements in array
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js2 ◴[06 Dec 25 18:26 UTC] No.46175433[source]▶
Or even worse:

  my($f) = `fortune`; # assigns first line of output to $f.
  my $f = `fortune`; # assign all output to $f.
Which allegedly got a HS kid in hot water[^1].

[^1]: "It's all about context" (2001): https://archive.ph/IB2kR (http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/col38.html)

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1. weare138 ◴[06 Dec 25 19:22 UTC] No.46175898[source]▶
Then don't use the low level interfaces. In Perl, language features are plug and play. Everything's in a module. Use the core module List::Util instead.