Taking the bull by its horns [was background]

[Kaldrenon]

Unless there's a financial reason, I'd skip Perl and focus on Ruby. And
Scheme is probably a better tutorial language than (Common) Lisp. Check
out "Dr. Scheme", for example.

I started on Perl because at the time it was the most un-Java language
I knew about, and I know it's considered beneficial to learn languages
that are very different from each other. I have since gained a lot of
exposure to just how many language choices there are (and better ones
than Perl, at that), but I still would like to learn a little more
about Perl from a pure academic interest/curiosity standpoint.

And perhaps when I said I want to learn Lisp I should have said "a
Lisp", since I know there are many. Common Lisp and Scheme are the two
I've heard the most about, so it will probably be one of those, but I
haven't decided yet. By "better tutorial language" are you saying that
Scheme is probably easier to learn? What makes it a good tutorial?

 

[Morton Goldberg]

Unless there's a financial reason, I'd skip Perl and focus on Ruby.
And
Scheme is probably a better tutorial language than (Common) Lisp.
Check
out "Dr. Scheme", for example.

I second that. Scheme over Common Lisp for sure. Also, I'd go for
Eiffel over Ada, and I would recommend Forth -- anyone who aspires to
becoming a broad-band programmer should be familiar with Forth.

Regards, Morton

 

[Chad Perrin]

Unless there's a financial reason, I'd skip Perl and focus on Ruby. And
Scheme is probably a better tutorial language than (Common) Lisp. Check
out "Dr. Scheme", for example.

Unless you're Ed, I wouldn't skip Perl. I actually like the the
language. Why limit yourself?

 

[Robert Dober]

Unless you're Ed, I wouldn't skip Perl. I actually like the the
language. Why limit yourself?

Another variation on the perl theme: Wait for Perl 6 though -- you
will be in good company too .
Robert

 

[Chad Perrin]

Another variation on the perl theme: Wait for Perl 6 though -- you
will be in good company too .

I don't think it's necessary to wait for Perl 6 -- but I'm certainly
looking forward to it.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I don't think it's necessary to wait for Perl 6 -- but I'm certainly
looking forward to it.

I'm just totally bored with Perl -- Perl 4 was a great improvement over
awk, but I only maintain old code in it. I don't like to write new Perl
code, and I am not willing to wait for Perl 6 when there are other
languages I like -- Erlang, Ruby, and maybe Smalltalk (assuming a decent
Smalltalk shows up on the AMD64 in Gentoo before I die. Perl 5.8 is
good enough, Ruby and R are better

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I second that. Scheme over Common Lisp for sure. Also, I'd go for Eiffel
over Ada, and I would recommend Forth -- anyone who aspires to becoming
a broad-band programmer should be familiar with Forth.

Regards, Morton

Actually, if you know both Scheme and Forth well, I wouldn't bother with
any other languages. They are the two most perfect programming languages
ever made. I'm just sorry I didn't invent either one of them.

They're also the most addicting programming languages. That's probably
why there are so few professional Forth programmers and almost no
professional Scheme programmers.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I started on Perl because at the time it was the most un-Java language
I knew about, and I know it's considered beneficial to learn languages
that are very different from each other. I have since gained a lot of
exposure to just how many language choices there are (and better ones
than Perl, at that), but I still would like to learn a little more
about Perl from a pure academic interest/curiosity standpoint.

I wasn't aware there was anything "academic" in Perl -- it's just an
immensely practical and pragmatic way of getting stuff done on
computers. I don't know if there's anything inside a Perl implementation
(at least not until Parrot) that would be as Earth-shaking as, say, call
with concurrent continuation, tail recursion, or even what's in the Java
Virtual Machine.

And perhaps when I said I want to learn Lisp I should have said "a
Lisp", since I know there are many. Common Lisp and Scheme are the two
I've heard the most about, so it will probably be one of those, but I
haven't decided yet. By "better tutorial language" are you saying that
Scheme is probably easier to learn? What makes it a good tutorial?

Well, for openers, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"
is based on Scheme. For another, Scheme cleaned up some weaknesses in
Lisp 1.5 that only with much wrangling got cleaned up in Common Lisp.
It's less bloated. The performance of a decent Scheme compiler is
probably about on a par with that of a decent Common Lisp compiler, and
the Common Lisp libraries and applications are much broader. But I don't
know of anything out there in the Common Lisp world like Dr. Scheme.

 

[Robert Dober]

I'm just totally bored with Perl -- Perl 4 was a great improvement over
awk, but I only maintain old code in it. I don't like to write new Perl
code, and I am not willing to wait for Perl 6 when there are other
languages I like -- Erlang, Ruby, and maybe Smalltalk (assuming a decent
Smalltalk shows up on the AMD64 in Gentoo before I die. Perl 5.8 is
good enough, Ruby and R are better

Well I dunno if I followed correctly there will be nothing like Perl6
elsewhere, it might be overkill, we'll see
Robert

 

[Chad Perrin]

I'm just totally bored with Perl -- Perl 4 was a great improvement over
awk, but I only maintain old code in it. I don't like to write new Perl
code, and I am not willing to wait for Perl 6 when there are other
languages I like -- Erlang, Ruby, and maybe Smalltalk (assuming a decent
Smalltalk shows up on the AMD64 in Gentoo before I die. Perl 5.8 is
good enough, Ruby and R are better

Well . . . that's another sense in which I don't think it's necessary to
"wait for" Perl 6: keep learning other languages, and learning to be
better with the languages you already know. Still, I'm looking forward
to it. I think Perl 6 will be one of the coolest languages going when
it's finally release-worthy.

I know I've said so in this venue before -- I don't think of Ruby as
being "better" than Perl. It's better at some things, and worse at
others. As such, I still use (and quite like) both.

 

[Chad Perrin]

I wasn't aware there was anything "academic" in Perl -- it's just an
immensely practical and pragmatic way of getting stuff done on
computers. I don't know if there's anything inside a Perl implementation
(at least not until Parrot) that would be as Earth-shaking as, say, call
with concurrent continuation, tail recursion, or even what's in the Java
Virtual Machine.

Considering Perl was created by a linguist, I'd think you might take that
as a cue for how to approach looking for its academic value. It has an
approach to language design all its own -- and it's an approach that has
proven incredibly practical for producing a language worth using.