Why People Are Passionate About Perl

brian d foy asks why people are passionate about Perl. So, brian, here are a pumpking's answers to your questions.

The person who introduced me to Perl showed me that I could throw away all those fragile sed and awk scripts and get the job done much quickier. So that gets us to the second question:

I first starting using Perl to process very large data files. Or at least they were considered very large at the time: less than 2 Go, I think. But I quickly grasped the thing and began to wrote small scripts to automate various things on my computer (and others').

I kept using Perl because it was fun. And it still is.

I can't stop thinking about Perl because... they won't let me! If I stop thinking about Perl, I know they're out there to get me, lurking in the dark corners of the intarweb, with their bug reports, their suggestions and their patches.

I'm still using Perl because, well, basically, because I'm paid for it. But on the other hand, I chose a job where I was getting paid to use Perl. I could have chosen a Java, a C, or (my goodness) a PHP job. But with a proper Perl job you have the CPAN at hand, ready to be used. So you can concentrate with the problem solving and the business side of your applications, because almost all the libraries you'll need are already there.

I get other people to use Perl by hitting them on the head with a -- no wait. Actually that's the most interesting question. I get other people to use Perl by trying to make Perl a less annoying language, in my own scale.

I also program in C, but mostly when I have to patch perl itself -- the only place where you can't use Perl.