[ILUG]dismissal-of-perl-for-bad-reasons bashing (was PHP/mysql content management system)

[John Allman]

Dave O Connor wrote:

>I fail to see this aversion to perl, because it's easy to write bad code. 
>It's easy to write bad code in any language, and sure, perl is no exception.
>What makes my 'skin crawl' is when people turn down a language that has the
>potential for being extrmely nice, clever and easy to read, because it's
>possible to write it badly. It's like not using paper because an infant could
>scrawl on it with a purple crayola.
>
>In my experience, perl is a lot easier to modularise, a lot clearer for some
>things (i.e. calling $object->munge() instead of
>doCertainProccessPHPHooray($object)).
>  
>
Dont get me wrong. I use perl regularly and believe it has it's place. 
My main problem with it in this context is probably that there are just 
*so* many ways of writing perl. Reading and working out somebody elses 
code can and usually does take a horribly long time. Especially if they 
think differently than you and use the language in a different way. And 
even perl's HTML::Template, though occasionally useful, is no match for 
the way you can slap php right into a page. I like that. Maybe it's 
possible to do with perl - i dont know. Not enjoying hacking someone 
elses perl is enough of a reason to put me off. Besides - you're right. 
It's mostly a gut reaction and i'm just arguing in order to justify it. 
But i generally go with my gut (it tells me when to eat - it has to be 
fairly reliable)

>Oh, I'm not PHP-bashing. I'm dismissal-of-perl-for-bad-reasons bashing. :)
>  
>

Fair enough. So - anything in perl you can recommend or generally just 
being the knight in shining armour for it?

John