Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Perl is a write-only language.



Translation:

I am not a competent $language programmer. You will not understand my poorly written code.

In this case, language="perl".

perl is not special in this regard.


Perl is meant to be written and read intuitively.

Which is a bad decision, in every language you're going by intuition 95% of the time, it's when a piece of code works in an unfamiliar way that you reason from first principles, and then having clear and rigid rules to fall back on gets you out of the rut more quickly. Perl's design makes this harder for purportedly giving you more tools to write code that looks about right.


I believe the longstanding joke goes, 'Perl is a Worn language, write once read never'


Check PangZero of Frozen Bubble.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: