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Message: [QUOTE="ccc31807, post: 4872038"] I used the same words that RG used, which were, and I quote: "Perl is just an ... abomination through-and-through. ... It was just horrible." I wasn't referring to any particular language, but to the descriptive lwords used. You might make a credible case that a particular language is horrible, and support your argument with logic and specific examples, but RG did not seem to do so. Instead, he seemed to be making his argument from simple prejudice and ignorance. I was pretty specific in stating that you can't judge a language without knowing something of the substance of the language, and quite frankly, I'm at a loss to see how you missed the main point. I didn't mean ANY particular language -- I meant the process of characterizing a language the way RG did based on reading a few chapters of an anonymous book. In the same way, I took it as fact that someone who expresses prejudice AGAINST something would also express prejudice TOWARD something else based on familiarity. Over the years, I've had some interaction with students and graduates of business and management departments of colleges and universities. These departments have IS or MIS majors and programs, and they typically use Microsoft technologies, such as Windows and Visual Basic. As a result of their indoctrination, they sometimes believe that Visual Basic is the highest and best programming language, and that all other languages are inferior. I have had one experience (not personal, but vicarious) of a manager taking over a unit of a large financial services firm and decreeing that from thenceforth all new development would use Windows, and MS tools, and that all existing processes would be converted. This notwithstanding the fact that the cost per transaction of the existing processes (Unix based) was about twenty percent of the cost of the existing MS units and that the conversion would entail substantial costs. WRT Perl, I agree that it's an ugly, convoluted, write once read never language, but it's popular, and it's popular for a reason. It's popular despite the fact that it's not taught in school, or in extension classes, or is on anyone's official list of approved technologies. Personally, I can tell you that it's a very good match for my job, better than any language I've had personal experience with (and I've studied and or learned about a dozen languages in my career.) I'm also making an effort to learn CL and achieve some proficiency in CL. My feeling so far is that CL is a more powerful language than Perl but not as suited to my job. Here's the point: Don't disparage a language before you know it, and don't rely on ignorant bias to disparage a language. CC. [/QUOTE]

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