Mythbusters – Why I (still) Love Perl
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My love for programming languages is very much akin (and I swear linked to the same part of my brain) as my love for human languages: they are all unique and beautiful in their own way. I love Python, I love C, I love Smalltalk, I love Erlang, etc, etc. But Perl has taken an entirely undeserved beating in recent years, and so, in karmic balance, it deserves a round of outspoken championship, far more than others need right now. In pondering why Perl’s current reputation is so completely disjointed from the reality of the language, I’ve boiled it down to three “Big Bang Theory”-esque ideas: “The Cookie Slap! Effect”, “The Awkward Adolescence Fallacy”, and “The Singularity Paradox”.
People still use Perl because it still works and the community has evolved with the language.