>> The language is so permissive that it allows newbs to write bad code but still obtain results
I can't see any relevance for a professional choice if newbies can shoot bigger holes in their foot with a certain tool.
That is a natural result of a powerful tool.
>> Perl experts seem to delight
Anecdotal. Ten years old description of half humorous use (and exercises). Also very different from best practices even then -- and especially different from how many/most work today.
Let me also note: If Perl wasn't better in many ways, you trolls would make serious arguments instead of "experts seem to delight"... [Or as you wrote above "Twenty-five years already? Now it can retire with full benefits."]
But I'll bite a little. Perl has the best OO system of all the scripting languages (Moose). The CPAN is the gold standard for scripting languages (and probably everything else). The testing culture is afaik second to none. The same goes for Unicode support. And so on.
I think there's a valid argument in the fact that it's diverse enough that you could have 2 highly experienced Perl coders who nevertheless disagree about an awful lot of things[1].
In professional environments or large projects, hopefully you're got a reasonably comprehensive style guides (or better yet, perlcritic config), but for smaller things, it can be a bit of a struggle to understand and conform to the specific style in question if you're trying to contribute to something new.
I don't think it's enough of an argument to dismiss the language though, and agree that the benefits far outweigh the somewhat-pointy learning curve.
[1] The old "Everyone uses 10% of C++, but they all have a different 10%" joke, basically.
I am not posting this to bag on Perl, but just to show its fingerprint. If you find that periodic table to be funny or cool then you are a lot more likely to be happy with Perl than if it makes you shudder.
I do find it funny, but also, it's [perl 6] documentation. But I agree with your point that personal preference varies.
Just an anecdote: a startup I work with built a product on Rails 2. It has been successful beyond anyone's wildest dreams. But they have a huge mess on their hands now, and it was caused by -success- :)
You claim to really not be aware that table is for a quite different language -- Perl 6?
That point has been made many, many times.
Edit: To the cultural question, there might be a point. I might add that I don't know Perl 6, but it seems like an insane amount of cool/fun toys (macro language like lisp with an Algol-like syntax?! If they can pull that off it is incredible.) That might say something about me and Perl people. But people I admire use both vim and Windows, so I'm not certain.
I also think Perl 6 has some really cool and innovative ideas. Far from using it to smear Perl, I think it is more interesting than previous versions.
But you are in denial if you think that this chart isn't a reasonably representative cultural artifact of the Perl community and the Perl aesthetic. Perl 5 is not exactly poor in operators, and it is the same core community which produced both.
I don't think that Perl is bad. I am saying that Perl is very strongly what it is. And while some people won't like that aesthetic, I don't see why anyone should apologize for it.
I never claimed that Perl wasn't powerful ... in fact I think I stated the opposite. Where I work, Perl is the lingua franca of the ops team and they certainly get things done. But the newbies don't shoot holes in their foot ... they blow it clear off and often don't survive.
My comment above may be perceived as a bit trollish but I was also thinking about "thanking Perl for a job well done". I quit Perl for what I consider valid reasons (which you completely dismiss - My experience may be "anecdotal" to you, but it's still my experience) which you're clearly not going to agree with. But notice that I never said "you shouldn't use it". I'll even admit that some people accomplish a lot with it ... and that CPAN is almost the gold standard for everything (with the exception of Maven Central I think).
So keep using Perl if you want ... but hopefully now you'll understand those of us that will no longer use it and why it's popularity is declining (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....). I expect I'll replace my current tools with something better (more productive/safer/maintainable) in the next 5 years since that's been a continuing pattern for me. What will you be using in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years?
Newbies writing code for things like (say) fiddling with directory trees should absolutely be writing unit tests, using VMs, etc. so that the worst outcome is that they waste time. Which isn't necessary if they devote some attention to properly learning the language.
I can't see any relevance for a professional choice if newbies can shoot bigger holes in their foot with a certain tool.
That is a natural result of a powerful tool.
>> Perl experts seem to delight
Anecdotal. Ten years old description of half humorous use (and exercises). Also very different from best practices even then -- and especially different from how many/most work today.
Let me also note: If Perl wasn't better in many ways, you trolls would make serious arguments instead of "experts seem to delight"... [Or as you wrote above "Twenty-five years already? Now it can retire with full benefits."]
But I'll bite a little. Perl has the best OO system of all the scripting languages (Moose). The CPAN is the gold standard for scripting languages (and probably everything else). The testing culture is afaik second to none. The same goes for Unicode support. And so on.