Re: [xml-dev] parsing markup with Perl

[Ihe Onwuka <ihe.onwuka@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 8:06 AM, Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org> wrote:

>
>> On 2/8/14 4:08 PM, Arjun Ray wrote:
>> > But why blame Perl, other than it's the language eveyone loves to
>> > hate?  (Actually, I thought that would be C++.)
>> >
>
> There is "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people
> [constantly] complain about and the ones nobody uses." (--
> https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bjarne_Stroustrup ). Also see what I wrote about
> it here - http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/57811.html ("Your Programming
> Language Must Suck") and there's also the Worse-is-better conjecture -
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better .
>

I think it is a bit misleading to categorise Scheme (first sentence of
your article)  alongside Pascal and C when the former is dynamically
typed and the latter are statically typed.

The article is better named - Your Programming Language is not perfect
- but then no-one would read it as we already all know that.

>
>     Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being
> a real problem in the longer term. Basically, a lot of the problems that
> computing has had in the last 25 years comes from systems where the designers
> were trying to fix some short-term thing and didn't think about whether the
> idea would scale if it were adopted. There should be a half-life on software so
> old software just melts away over 10 or 15 years.
>>>>
>

It's another example of people learning a tool or a language and
applying it universally to all problems whether it is an appropriate
tool for that domain or not.

This is not unique to Perl . Alot if not most software gets developed
this way and my earlier comment about how PHP has literally become
the defacto standard language for parsing HTML is but one example.

On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 8:06 AM, Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org> wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> I'm joining this thread late.
>
> First of all I'd like to note that I found the original article (maybe it's
> more of a blog post) on O'ReillyNet, which I only skimmed, to be mostly
> factual, and correct and I'm saying this as an active Perl programmer and
> contributor to the Perl ecosystem (including the Perl core and
> CPAN - https://metacpan.org/author/SHLOMIF ) who knows a little about the
> proper way to do things and been helping or trying to help people with their
> Perl problems on various Perl-specific forums.
>
> Otherwise, I believe your message was information and insightful. Some nitpicks.
>
> On Sun, 09 Feb 2014 07:54:24 -0500
> Michael Sokolov <msokolov@safaribooksonline.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2/8/14 4:08 PM, Arjun Ray wrote:
>> > But why blame Perl, other than it's the language eveyone loves to
>> > hate?  (Actually, I thought that would be C++.)
>> >
>
> There is “There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people
> [constantly] complain about and the ones nobody uses.” (--
> https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bjarne_Stroustrup ). Also see what I wrote about
> it here - http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/57811.html (“Your Programming
> Language Must Suck”) and there’s also the Worse-is-better conjecture -
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better .
>
>> >
>> I think it's because regexes (*real* perl regexes, not the pale
>> imitations purists refer to as "regular expressions") are so easy to
>> use, convenient, and powerful in Perl, unlike other languages (cough,
>> Java I'm looking at you).
>
> Well, the term regular expression has its origins in theoretical computer
> science - see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/RegularExpression.html which are
> limited in their scope and functionality and can be translated to and from
> deterministic finite automata (DFAs or “state machines”). However, after Ken
> Thompson imported them for useful functionality in ed and later on tools like
> sed, grep, vi, etc. they were extended with additional syntax and
> functionality. Moreover, the POSIX regex syntax (e.g: “grep -E”) requires
> such features as back references (e.g: (...)...\1 ), which are not supported
> by mathematical regular expressions.
>
> Perl 1→2→3→4→5→→→5.18.0 extended the syntax for regular expressions considerably
> with many of its extensions, and other programming langauges created similar
> grammars for regular expressions with their own extensions, missing features,
> etc. On #perl on the Freenode IRC (= online chat) network, people often join
> #perl to ask us questions for these “Like-Perl-But-Different” (LPBD - an
> unflattering play on the name of the
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_Compatible_Regular_Expressions library ) and
> it annoys some regulars, though we sometimes help them with their issues.
>
> And after the fact many languages copied the Perl 5 regular expressions, notes
> that:
>
> «
> Now, the thing I really wanted to get to, which we think will influence the
> world outside of Perl is we saw how everyone borrowed Perl 5 compatible regular
> expressions, and we figured - well, you know, they're a really big mess, and
> we're sorry, but we're changing them now, now that you've just borrowed them.
>
> So everyone is gonna go from PCRE to P6RE or something like that.
> »
>
> That was the intention back then, but the project to create Perl 6, has made
> some releases, but they are still not fast and bug-free enough for production
> use. I know that Perl 6 patterns including the entire
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_language -s feature set, which is a
> superset of the languages supported by mathematical regexes/state machines.
>
> So the times are indeed "interesting" (Whether they are good is a different
> issue).
>
> To sum up, Perl 5 does not have a sole claim on what "regular expression" means
> and implies and it is not the origin of the term or the programming
> paradigm, though naturally it has influenced its evolution and mutation a lot.
>
> Regarding Perl 5, I still happen to use it a lot in part because it's my
> comfort zone and I'm used to it. I've taken a look at Python, Ruby and other
> languages and also wrote some code with them, but I didn't find them
> earth-shattering - I found them better in some respects than Perl 5, but also
> worse in many others, and they weren't as enlightening as learning Perl 5 and
> UNIX after knowing DOS, Windows 3.x, BASIC, QBasic, C, and C/C++ around 1996 (I
> actually felt it was an "epiphany"). I agree Perl 5 has many years (possibly
> decades) of legacy and I have written a page with many items about what you can
> do wrong with it (which the interpreter and compiler often won't complain
> about) and what should be done instead -
> http://perl-begin.org/tutorials/bad-elements/ (although a lot of it is not
> specific to Perl).
>
> (I should note I’m not entirely blasé because I had a real joy discovering such
> useful tools as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player and
> http://emscripten.org/ ).
>
> On https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Kay there’s a quote that say:
>
> <<<
>     Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being
> a real problem in the longer term. Basically, a lot of the problems that
> computing has had in the last 25 years comes from systems where the designers
> were trying to fix some short-term thing and didn’t think about whether the
> idea would scale if it were adopted. There should be a half-life on software so
> old software just melts away over 10 or 15 years.
>>>>
>
> On the other hand “Aristotle” gives a somewhat opposing but insightful view
> here:
>
> http://blogs.perl.org/users/aristotle/2013/06/decade-scale.html
>
> he compares backward compatibility to gravity, saying that without it we'll
> just float around in space and that the evolution of carbon-based life on Earth,
> still required nature to have gravity.
>
> I could go on, but I want to say that there is a lot of cruft and legacy in
> Perl, and it sucks quite a bit, but I guess it's still usable with some
> discipline. It's become an Internet sport to hate and criticise Perl, but: 1.
> It's possible to write bad code in any language. 2. Many other popular
> languages have other bad aspects, and you can never please everyone. This talk
> which I was referred to shows some design aspects of Scala that the lecturer
> (and I) found wrong - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS1lpKBMkgg (apologies if
> you are hearing and/or sight impaired, there may be some transcript or subtitles
> somewhere), and Scala is a young language which could have been
> designed properly.
>
> Regards,
>
>         Shlomi Fish
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
> The Human Hacking Field Guide - http://shlom.in/hhfg
>
> Major Kira: Well, duh! The prophets spoke of several of The Invisible’s
> children and their whereabouts.
> Jadzia: Major, you and I will need to talk someday about that “duh”.
>     — http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Star-Trek/We-the-Living-Dead/
>
> Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
>
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