Perl Language Pros and Cons

I need to know the Perl language pros and cons.

Perl is an interpreted language, so you do not have to compile it to test it.

A lot of object oriented languages are the same way.

It is really common.

So is PHP. In fact, so are Java and C-sharp.

There are a lot of CGI scripts and other functions for system admins.

If system admins truly ruled the world, there would not be any Windows PCs left.

Perl is portable and runs on almost everything.

So does Java.

It is good for file manipulation. It excels at sed replacements and string manipulation.

That’s something a system admin would like. So what is something in particular that Perl is bad at?

It is particularly bad at syntax. There are jokes that Perl is the only object you could Uuencode and not notice.

What is Uuencode?

That is a form of binary to text encoding.

So you’re saying the thing is so hard to read that turning it into binary hardly makes a difference, except now the internet can read it.

It is not as usable as Python, and the object model is hard to find documentation on.

And a lot of people bash on Python for not having documentation and online lessons as simple as JavaScript over at Khan Academy.

Perl is not simple enough to turn the lessons to learn it into a game.

What else should I know about Perl?

It is commonly used for graphical programming. It does good with bioinformatics.

Which is nothing I plan on doing.

It uses a lot of procedures from functional languages like C, Lisp and Awk.

I consider that a step backward.

It is often used as a glue language, interfacing between two different languages.

Or I could learn JavaScript, that is often used as a code module in something like Python or PHP. Then I only have to learn two languages, not a third.

Perl uses traditional approaches like braces for functions and loops.

If I wanted to learn the old languages, I’d just go suffer through C and make a fortune making the next OS for anyone but Apple.

Perl was one of the first object oriented languages, and that’s why it is so widely used.

That’s the same reason Windows is still used for anything, but that’s not always a good reason to use it. And that is not a good reason to learn a hard programming language, either.