996
|
1
|
|
2 From: johnpc@xs4all.nl (Jan-Pieter Cornet)
|
|
3 Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.tcl,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.java,alt.lang.intercal,alt.test
|
|
4 Subject: Re: Readable Perl (was: Re: Relative Speed of Perl vs. Tcl vs. C)
|
|
5 Date: 27 Feb 1996 02:44:19 GMT
|
|
6 Organization: XS4ALL Internet
|
|
7 Message-ID: <4gtr64$s7h@news.xs4all.nl>
|
|
8 Summary: hit "n" now! quick!
|
|
9
|
|
10 In article <4ge7bk$4vq@news.ox.ac.uk>,
|
|
11 David Hopwood <lady0065@sable.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
|
|
12 >In article <4gb3kp$lu7@gaia.ns.utk.edu>,
|
|
13 >Matthew B. Kennel <kennel@msr.epm.ornl.gov> wrote:
|
|
14 >>Randal L. Schwartz (merlyn@stonehenge.com) wrote:
|
|
15 >>: >>>>> "John" == John Viega <jtv2j@mamba.cs.virginia.edu> writes:
|
|
16 >>
|
|
17 >>: John> People bitch about the readability of Perl non-stop. In fact, I have
|
|
18 >>: John> heard the joke, "Perl, the only language you can uuencode, and not
|
|
19 >>: John> notice" twice this week around the department.
|
|
20 >>
|
|
21 >>: OK, now which do you find most readable...
|
|
22 >
|
|
23 >This (Haskell):
|
|
24 >
|
|
25 >cancount n = "I can count to "++(show n)++"\n"
|
|
26 >concat (map cancount [1..10])
|
|
27
|
|
28 No, you got it all totally wrong. I think this is the best readable
|
|
29 (in Tri-INTERCAL):
|
|
30
|
|
31 [Program moved to .3i file.]
|
|
32
|
|
33 Now, I think the advantages of this are pretty clear. First, this is
|
|
34 clearly a write-only language. There are only few people insane enough
|
|
35 to actually understand the above drivel, and they wouldn't bother
|
|
36 touching your petty code, as they are too busy filling bathtubs with
|
|
37 brightly colored machine tools.
|
|
38
|
|
39 Anyone else will simply be too scared to touch this code. So you can be
|
|
40 pretty sure nobody changes it behind your back.
|
|
41
|
|
42 In fact, you can be pretty sure you won't change it either after you
|
|
43 wrote it, because you will probably have forgotten how the program
|
|
44 works 5 minutes after you wrote it. So any luser nagging for extra
|
|
45 features afterwards, is SOL.
|
|
46
|
|
47 The other major advantage is... the above code took me about 3 hours
|
|
48 to write. Compare this to the 10 to 30 seconds it takes to write a
|
|
49 similar program in perl, BASIC, Haskell or what have you. But... that
|
|
50 means that when you programmed it in that other language, you'd have to
|
|
51 spend 2 hours 59 minutes and somewhere between 30 and 50 seconds
|
|
52 answering the phone talking to clueless lusers, changing backup tapes,
|
|
53 or doing other boring stuff. While you could have been programming
|
|
54 Intercal instead! Just think about that!
|
|
55
|
|
56 And last, but certainly not least, is: the above code is likely to
|
|
57 impress your boss. Bosses are wont to be impressed by incomprehensible
|
|
58 things. They won't be impressed by a three line perl program that anyone
|
|
59 not wearing a diaper can understand.
|
|
60
|
|
61 So that pretty much proves it.
|
|
62
|
|
63 PS: this article contains some strange usage of the words "best readable"
|
|
64 that you probably weren't previously aware of :)
|
|
65
|
|
66 --
|
|
67 Jan-Pieter Cornet <johnpc@xs4all.net>
|
|
68 Actual quote: "Linux was made by foreign terrorists to steal money from true
|
|
69 AMERICAN companies like Microsoft who invented computing as we
|
|
70 know it, and are being punished for their success..."
|
|
71 Linux -- "It's computing, Jim, but not as we know it"
|