zlacker

>>todsac+(OP)
In fairness, Perl died because it was just not a good language compared to others that popped up after its peak. Sometimes people just move to the better option.

>>mmastr+53
Perl is a great language, the way Scala and Haskell are great: as openly experimental languages, they tried interesting, unorthodox approaches, with varied success. "More than one way to do it" is Perl's motto, because of its audacious experimentation ethos, I'd say.

Perl is not that good a language though for practical purposes. The same way, a breadboard contraption is not what you want to ship as your hardware product, but without it, and the mistakes made and addressed while tinkering with it, the sleek consumer-grade PCB won't be possible to design.

>>nine_k+c5
The big pearl of wisdom I took from Larry Wall seemed to be counter to the culture I experienced looking in from the outside. That always confused me a bit about Perl.

And that was, paraphrased: make the way you want something to be used be the most concise way to use it and make the more obscure features be wordy.

This could have been the backbone of an entire community but they diminished it to code golf.