Talk:Perl

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  • Archive 1 - Leaking; Book Reviews, Xah Lee, would-be perl critic?; Perl programming language?; Regular Expressions with Perl Examples; Logo suggestion; Merits and demerits of Perl as a programming language; Propagandistic errors; Web hosting advertisements; Obfuscation example; History; Copyedits; TOCleft and indented paragraphs; Perl 6; Section ordering; Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
  • Archive 2 - A sample Perl program; [Pp]erl; Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language; Explanation of for/foreach Syntax; Sample code formatting; Merits and demerits of Perl as a programming language; Data types and Variables; Time to split the page?; Language Design Philosophy; Intro paragraph; Perl is not (really) an interpreted language; Pro vs. Con; Use of $a, $b in examples; Context-free; Hello world; Perlscript; The lead; Perl is interpreted; Semicolons used inconsistently in one line scripts; Regex examples; Page reorganization; Listed as a .Net Language?; processor-bound tasks???.
  • Archive 3 (the -Barry- collection) - Popular alternatives to Perl; TCPI?; Benchmark comparison; Future of Perl 5; brian d foy's style guide; Call for "See also" links for Pro section; Linking more than first instance if a term; References section; Popularity, again; Opinion section links; More bias by Scarpia; Article removed from Wikipedia:Good articles; Where's the index on the talk page?; Mediation; Perl's OO model influenced by Python; brian d foy on percentages and the TIOBE data; mediation with a stick; m// match operator; The Overview section; TIOBE data and IRC chat; Naming conventions; Let's ditch the Opinion section completely.
  • Archive 4 - The Perl Wiki in Wikia; Comparative Performance; # This is a comment; The Perl Wiki in Wikia, plea 2; A GPL Perl application; Critique

Contents

[edit] Criticism

This article seems to be remarkably short on criticism of perl. —Ashley Y 00:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh goodness me, be careful with that box if you're going to open it. (Why? Have a read through /Archive03 to see the approach you shouldn't take.) -- Earle Martin [t/c] 00:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I recommend citations of criticism from reputable sources. Did Dijkstra say anything about it, for instance? —Ashley Y 19:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Agonising, eye-glazingly long syntax section

This isn't a tutorial. It shouldn't read like one. The syntax section does not need examples. This needs heavily whittled down, it's a whole article in itself. Chris Cunningham 16:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lead with Overview, not History

I think we should move the history section back down to the end of the article. It may be logical to begin any subject by reciting its history, that's not usually the first thing that people consulting an encyclopedia want to see. People reading the Perl article in WikiPedia want a basic overview and introduction, and that's what the Overview section is for. Swmcd 15:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

A quick glance at the linked languages in the infobox shows that every single one of them opens with the history section. In Perl's case there's an even stronger case what with the "overview" being well over a page long on a 1280x1024 display. Chris Cunningham 16:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
While I agree with your points, I think Swmcd's assumptions need close examination as well. An encyclopedia entry is not a reference manual, and it must be aimed at the broadest possible audience. For this article to be encyclopedic it needs to deal with the fact that, while some readers will understand the technical details of the langauge, most will want to place it in a non-technical context to understand its relation to other langauges in an abstract, historical sense. Leading with the history section accomplishes that. In fact, that was one of the first changes proposed when I put Perl 6 up for Good Article review. -Harmil 17:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that the History section does not place the language in a non-technical context. The History section recounts the sequence of technical developments to the langauge. By the end of the Perl article, a non-technical reader will have some context for this, but at the very beginning, they don't. The new paragraph in the lead gives the reader some orientation, but I think it would simpler and clearer to move the History section back to the end of the article and rely on the Overview section to orient the user. Swmcd 21:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Review of History section for technical ramp-up:
  • "Wall began work..." Only the mention of "regular expressions" and "binary data" are technical at all, and both are too fundamental to do much more work on explaining.
  • "Until 1991..." The mention of the documentation is a bit abrupt, and could use more context, but isn't technical at all.
  • "Perl 4 went through..." About version numbering. Not technical other than in the use of fairly typical version numbering schemes.
  • "Development of Perl 5..." Totally non-technical. Again, all about versions and communication channels.
  • "Perl 5 was released..." Here, we mention a laundry-list of features. Some might need some context. Some don't. This paragraph could use work.
  • "On October 26, 1995..." Nothing really technical, but more context about CPAN would not hurt. As I recall, CPAN's mission changed rapidly, and perhaps some mention of the early history would help.
  • "As of 2006, Perl 5..." Some context here would be good. Nothing major, just some reduction in the jargon in favor of descriptive text. "Unicode" for example should be "international text processing features using the Unicode character set," which gives the reader who doesn't know Unicode, but doesn't want to follow the link more of a leg to stand on.
That's it. for the most part, I think it's in good shape as the first sub-section. There are certainly some stubby paragraphs, but when compared to many other language articles, I think it's good. -Harmil 00:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A sentence that is hard to understand

From the article:"All variables are marked by a leading sigil, which identifies the data type being accessed (not the type of the variable itself)"

I don't think the differnece between the data type being accessed and the type of the variable itself is clear.ori 18:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree actually I think that the Data Types section needs work. Lists are NOT arrays are NOT lists. And there are more than four fundamental types and I think if we are going to discuss filehandles (IO) as one of them I think we should include subroutines (CODE) as one of them. Particularly as perl is a functional language with first class closures available. Demerphq 22:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I added subroutines to the data type and removed references to "lists" when discussing variables. Lists are an abstract concept in perl and not a variable type. Demerphq 23:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two "current" versions on ActiveState

Generally, there is one main version of a software program. It is the one with the highest version number, the "latest and greatest". Any version below that is not being actively maintained. Perl is differnt, in that, if someone looks at the ActiveState website, they will see both a 5.8 version and a 5.6 version. Perhaps we should add a paragraph or two describing how and why there are two versions of perl5 being maintained and updated. TakingUpSpace 01:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This seems backwards

The article says:

"sigils...which identifies the data type being accessed (not the type of the variable itself)"

It seems sigils do identify variable type, whether it be array, hash or scalar variable, while the data type is based on context. If you call an array variable with a $ instead of a @, its not going read in scalar context and return the amount of elements, it just going to be empty, or give an error if using strict.--71.229.77.97 02:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DBI tutorial

I wrote a short tutorial on using Perl DBI at Wikibooks: b:Perl Programming/DBI - Perl Database Inteface.

Currently it only has one example for Oracle. That's the only DBMS with which i had personal experience.

It would be great if someone could add a section about connection to a free database, such as MySQL.

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 11:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fun with Perl -> The Perl community

My reading of "Fun with Perl" was this: it was mostly about the community. Thus, I've re-written it as such, and added a number of details and references. I've also removed some examples that I dont' think actually helped any.

Please, let me know what you think. I'd really like to see the whole thing expanded on the community front to detail some of the growth of the community and the phases of involvement from Larry's daughter / Perl annoucement in 1987 on Usenet all the way up to the RFC process for Perl 6. -Harmil 23:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] enhancements

 16:38, 2007 February 28 Aristotle Pagaltzis (Talk | contribs) (→History - [...] enhancements aren’t necessarily minor)

Can we list the enhancements that aren't minor?

Swmcd 16:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice, but it's not required. If there is even the possibility for disagreement on the point, then we need to be able to cite our sources to claim that any given change was or was not "minor" (an inherently subjective term). -Harmil 16:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with the Interpreter

I have downloaded the perl interpreter, placed it in the "C:\Program Flies\Perl" directory, tried to run the Hello World program, but apparently it doesn't work. Does anyone know how to run the interpreter from that directory? ~Steptrip You raise me up 13:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place for this question. See http://www.perl.com/pub/q/FAQs http://www.perl.com/pub/q/resources or http://lists.cpan.org/ peterl 07:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Maybe you would like a template similar to the one at Talk:Wikitruth that says "This is not a forum about the article's subject, it is a place to discuss how to improve the article." ~Steptrip 14:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] unfriendly takeover

i, the maintainer of the german perl article, have plans in mind to replace this article complete with a translation of my work because i think is much better structured and its more readable, but i dont want only destray your work. i think it would help if someone would agree here or help, since me english could heve some lesser flaws. no fear it wount happen next week. (but better i prepare you now huahahaha..)Lichtkind 20:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you have some specific comments about the current article? I'm not against an overhaul, but I'd have to know what it was that we were addressing. If it's purely stylistic concerns, then I see no reason to favor your aesthetic over anyone else's. However, if there are significant, tangible improvements to be had, then let us know.
That said, understand that your comments make it clear that there are editorial differences between the German Wikipedia and this one. Here, we don't tend to have a "maintainer" for articles. In fact WP:OWN exists because we've had a number of editors become over-protective of their own edits. Whatever Perl's article becomes, it will almost certainly have to change as a result of consensus, at least here on the English Wikipedia. -Harmil 21:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
no we dont have maintainer either, thats an international ground principle of the wp. i am the maintainer i the sense that i did most content work, and more single edits than any other in past 15 month. i have just figured out that somebody have to make up an plan that the article will be consistent. which leeds me to the answer of next question below. i had many nonetechnical revierwers, and for most of them it was fun to read because we have high info density and an quit entertaining flow thanks to lots of people who helped. most infos are in place you would expect from the topics. the topics itself follow a scheme. and so on. i also did shamelessly steal most of the thing that were better here. But to sum up in short no its not only the form its also more roundet up info-wise. thanks. Lichtkind 11:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I too would like to know in what ways specifically is the German version 'much better'. peterl 21:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
see above.Lichtkind 11:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Review of German Perl

On the de.wikipedia.org, I've been looking over the Perl article to see what improvements might be available. I don't read German, but being a native English speaker and this being a technical article about a primarily English-language subject, enough of the words and sentence structure is similar that I can get a sense of the article. Here are some things I noticed:

  • The history on de clearly outlines the progression of versions of Perl and their highlights. This is something the en version does not do.
  • There are three pictures of people... something I'm not SURE is required, and one of them is that horribly doctored picture of Audrey Tang (I like Audrey, but her picture on Wikipedia is horrible; has lens flare added; and is cropped in an oval).
  • The Perl 6 info is covered in the history section right after Perl 5, rather than in a later "Future" section.
  • The "Merkmale" section is structured in a way which is unique to Perl (that is, it is about Perl's point of view, and so that structure would not make sense for another language's article). For example, the "Mehrere Wege" sub-section is translated by Google Translation as "Several Ways" (as in, "There is more than one way to do it")
  • There are a grand total of 6 citations... that's a deal-breaker on en.
  • The "Kritik" is argumentative, and presents a strong Perl POV, refuting brief points with lengthy counter-arguments.

Overall, I'm not sure that I see that there's a huge value in adopting the German version, even given significant translation effort. I do think that there are useful lessons to be learned, and I'd invite anyone who speaks both languages to peruse both articles and merge improvements in either direction. -Harmil 23:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel the best thing to do would be for Lichtkind to create a subpage here and place his/her translated article into it for the community to take a look at and discuss, rather than going so far as to replace the actual article. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 23:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, thats the discussion i wanted, shure the de article still isn't perfekt. but yes its a good style to sum up argumentnts in Kritik but your right i could write it a bit more neutral but see it please also as a counterreaction of a lot misinformed anti perl POV which is around. not today but i planned to translate it section wise. because you also said that the history section would be more useful for you than other parts. as far es i understand english history is always something in the past. geschichte has in german the conotation of a sory (his-story) which i thought fit perl6 perfectly in. germans always tend to more clear structures :). and yes i try to organize anotzer picture of audrey since i know her a bit. of course picts are not required but its a nicer read with pics and my goal is to make the article exellent and in de that is nearly impossible without pictures. and "Merkmale" means characteristics which can applied to any language only the structure of the first subparagraph was indeed made on perl design. its only 5 quotes now :). will see you. Lichtkind 11:10, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Have you read the version here, in depth? I've read almost all of the German version using Google Translation, and I have to say, the two are about the same. The de version covers things in a different order, and stresses some things that the en version does not. In turn the en version stresses some things that the de version does not. One thing that I think the de version does is get into the language structure a bit more clearly. Some of that could be merged into this article. I've always disliked the fact that we lead "Language structure" with a hello-world example. That's fine for an instruction manual like The C Programming Language or Programming Perl, but doesn't really work for an encyclopedia. As for the section name, "History", I don't see any problem with moving the "Future" section on "en" into the "History" section and re-naming it "Perl 6". It's not, after all, about the future. It's about the last 6 years of effort that has gone into Perl 6.
As for the POV issue, I think de and en just have different ways of dealing with POV. What seems like a very one-sided POVish section here, might be acceptable there. I'm just saying that it's a clear example of how merging good elements from either de or en to the other makes sense, rather than whole-cloth replacing one with the other. -Harmil 13:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
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