@mjgardner Do you think it's worth picking up Perl now? I'm tempted to revisit it after a brief flirtation a decade ago, also 5 or 6/Raku?
@mjgardner Really just for my own edification. I'm drawn to the long tradition of Perl in Unix/Linux. It still seems to be very healthy.
@sullybiker Oh, if you’re into the #Unix tradition and philosophy then you *need* to learn #Perl. No other general-purpose programming language has Unix baked into it so deeply.
@sullybiker #Perl is also going another phase of exciting improvements lately. Experimental features like subroutine signatures and postfix dereferencing are finally stable and misfeatures are being deprecated or forbidden. And there are entirely new experimental features being worked on, including a modern #ObjectOrientedProgramming syntax and paradigm being built into the core language.
@sullybiker That’s the sober, pragmatic answer focused on you.
The answer that focuses on *me* is: “Yes! Learn #Perl! If there are more Perl programmers then there’s more of a chance I can gainfully continue doing what *I* enjoy!”
@sullybiker
Perl 5 is in the base install of just about every flavor of *nix.. Once you start using it you'll ask yourself why Python was ever invented.
@mjgardner
@paulgatling @sullybiker This is also true, though #macOS has been deprecating and removing scripting runtimes over the past several years. #Perl and #Python both have targets on their backs there. Also, some #Linux distros (I’m looking at you, #RHEL and derivatives) split Perl into bowdlerized packages that don’t necessarily install the complete core upstream distribution of the language unless you ask for it.
@sullybiker In general it’s never a bad time to learn something new for its own sake, but I don’t know what “worth it” means to your situation.
As far as #Perl vs. #RakuLang: they are two different languages and ecosystems, as finally recognized by the latter changing its name from #Perl6. Both come with benefits and tradeoffs, some common and some unique. Again, without knowing what you want to do I don’t know which to recommend.