Re: Extract number from character field(Perl syntax) (wayyofftopic)

Jim Wrote:
>> Perl may take longer to learn than other languages, but then,
>> why should everything be easy to learn?
>
>Why shouldn't everything be easy to learn?

I think Perl is a good example.  It's a powerful language
that gives little ground to amateurs.  It's a language
designed by and for those who know what they're doing.

Let's look at an analogy - human language.  Should it be
easy to learn a foreign language?  It's not.  But the
rewards of learning another language are great.  Should
the speakers of, say, Russian change their language to
make it easier for us to learn?


>I bought RedHat 5.2 not 2 months ago.  Soon as I get it installed
>I'm told that 6.0 or 6.1 is the latest and greatest now.  I just don't
>feel like spending forever trying to figure out what packages and
>files and everything else I have to download to upgrade.

Two months ago?  Two months ago, RH 5.2 was already almost
a year old.  6.0 had already been available for at least
four or five months!


>I know that on my Linux box there are just some things I'm going to have
>to use Perl for instead of anything else, just because that's how everyone
>else does it.

There are lot's of different weird and wonderful
languages available on Linux:  TCL, Python, bash, csh
to name a few.


>But, just like APL, where you could write a program very quickly in a very
>short amount of space, maintainability becomes very very difficult.

True, APL is certainly a "write-only" language.  But
programs written in any other language can be quite
maintainable in the hands of an expert.  Some languages,
like Perl and Java, include facilities to automate the
generation of documentation.

>
>As you can probably tell, I am one for making almost all languages do
everything,
>and making them do it very similar.  Years ago, 10+, this was unheard of,
>but is becoming a reality.

It certainly was not unheard of in the late 1960's.
Never heard of PL/I?  One of the early great attempts
at AI.  I think PL/I put an end to the idea that one
language could do everything.

No, I don't think we'll ever see a convergence of
programming languages.  There are simply too many
conflicting goals.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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