Perl Programming in 2024 | Still a Useful Language?

Hello all, welcome to another Programming video, today we are talking about PERL!
Holy smokes I bet you haven't seen a perl video in your feed lately, Stick around and learn about what this language can do for you.
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[@jasonchesshir9551]

Everyone is sleeping on Perl. Code quality is dependent on the writer, not the language. Glad to see some Perl content in 2024.

[@MeriaDuck]

One of the problems I have with perl is the number of things that are implicitly happening. And accidentally using a list in scalar context doesn't break, it implies you want the length. So a function created for numbers would do _something_ when receiving a list, and vice versa. That something would hardly ever be what you wanted. It was one of the firs languages that had a central repository of libraries.

[@felipevaldes7679]

This video discusses the relevance of the Perl programming language in 2024. The key points are: Perl is a legacy language that was ahead of its time when it was created in 1987, offering better syntax and functionality than bash scripting. While Perl has no strict types, it has three semi-types: scalars, arrays, and hashes, making it a mix between an object-oriented and scripting language. Python is considered the modern version of Perl, with similar features like dynamic typing and scripting capabilities. Perl's strength lies in text processing, regex operations, and acting as a glue between external applications, parsing their output, and performing automated tasks. The video demonstrates how Perl can be used to call system commands like dmesg and parse their output using regex expressions. Perl is compatible with C libraries and can load and run C code within Perl scripts. While Perl has an active community and package management system (CPAN), some packages are outdated and may require modifications. The video suggests that Perl's primary use case in 2024 is for text processing, parsing command outputs, and automating tasks involving external applications, leveraging its regex capabilities and compatibility with C libraries.

[@groff8657]

If I remember correctly Perl and it's numerous published books defined the standard for regular expressions. It's text processing capabilities is so legendary that it literally set the tone for writing Regex.

[@chmod0644]

Perl is dope. Check out perl format directives, a built-in DSL that's kind of like a templating language.

[@official_starcoding]

Ooo I have never heard of this - wow looking at the man page now, very nice for console/file/log output!

[@carmacarmody]

Perl is the absolute best language to do things quickly if you know what you are doing. I will use it over python any day of the week for quick simple script stuff.

[@CrankyStalker]

perl programming language offical website is got skipped by me , check my channel i post the video explain

[@muyvin98]

perl is very practical, people like to bash on other languages without fully trying it.

[@user-pe7gf9rv4m]

What about Raku?

[@benhuangbmj]

How often do you use Perl? For job or for side projects?

[@jpcarballo]

In my case, quite a lot. Once your shell scripts get clunky from using awk and grep, perl comes to the rescue. Two other use cases come to mind. Use perl to handle a lot of text data and format the output using SQL statements. And you can parse the output from a database and save it to say a google sheet. You now then have it dynamically update the page like a counter or a status and then use google sheets to change the color of each cell from green to yellow to red depending on the output.

[@benhuangbmj]

@@jpcarballo Awesome! My recent discovery about Perl is exactly in shell scripts. I was trying to use sed to do some regular expression stuffs, only to find that sed doesn't support look ahead/behind, and I was told (by ChatGPT) that Perl would be perfect for this application. On the other hand, although I don't have any hands-on experience with Perl, it's always on my radar, because one open source software I have been using in my day job is written in Perl (WebWork, an educational software).

[@wilsonfreitas8418]

Perl is useful if you want to make sure nobody can read your code. Not even yourself.

[@PurpleYoshiEgg]

I don't get this. Perl isn't actually too hard to read if you put an ounce of thought into making the code readable.

[@jpcarballo]

@@PurpleYoshiEgg What he probably means is that it's easy to make Perl unreadable if you lean too much on the syntax shortcuts that are useful for one liners and quick system calls. No one uses them in general programming. Read any module in CPAN and it'll be filled with very readable code.

[@muyvin98]

if you want to code perl professionally, did you ever heard of coding guidelines or best practices.

[@CHURCHISAWESUM]

@@muyvin98 if you ain't rippin off one liners like a madman why even use perl

[@muyvin98]

@@CHURCHISAWESUM I'm saying there are ways to code in perl . No one is forcing you to use perl. Use any language you like

[@eadwacer524]

Why the "my" on variables at the highest scope?

[@CheesyAceGameplay]

my = current scope variable our = global variable Yeah. Syntax. Kinda like the “let” keyword in JavaScript.

[@eadwacer524]

@@CheesyAceGameplay Well in JS you can also create a variable without "let" or "var" by making a global, which was the original way to define a variable before "var" was added. //JS: a=1 var b let c #In Perl there I think there are 7 ways of defining a variable $a; b; local $c; my $d; use constant E=>2; our $f; state $g; As far as I understand about Perl, the "my" doesn't have any meaning when used at the highest scope, if you were going to create a package variable perhaps "our" would fit though.

[@adrian7583]

This also allows you to safely reuse a program as a function in another program.