I’ve written code in Bash, C, C++, Haskell, Java, Pascal, PHP, Python, Ruby. So I feel like I’ve been around the block a few times, as far as choosing a language. And yet, Perl leaves me bewildered.

One of the pillars of Ruby is something called “the principle of least surprise”. What it means is that when you’re not sure how to do something in Ruby, and you just do what seems most likely to work, it works. It’s a wonderful quality, and it seems to be based on Perl, because Perl is the exact opposite.

Perl smacks horribly of apprenticeship culture. One where the novice is carefully guided through the valley of death, across the bridge over the pit of lava, past the nine-headed monsters, by a veteran monk. Send a tourist out there with a map and he’s likely to be sent home in several pieces.

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