←back to thread

Perl's decline was cultural

(www.beatworm.co.uk)
393 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | 06 Dec 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.19s | source
Show context
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.
replies(8): >>46175334 #>>46175346 #>>46175376 #>>46175394 #>>46175434 #>>46176859 #>>46178016 #>>46188747 #
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
replies(6): >>46175433 #>>46175735 #>>46175847 #>>46175852 #>>46176259 #>>46177779 #
1. wlonkly ◴[06 Dec 25 23:55 UTC] No.46177779[source]▶
It's funny, because something like

    array var = array  # copied
    int var = array    # length
or

    var = array  # copied
    var = array.to_i  # length
is less subtle to me but I can't put my finger on why.