[JOB] Perl Software Developer and Database programmer

[Aaron Trevena]

On 23/02/06, Peter Corlett <abuse at cabal.org.uk> wrote:
> Lusercop <`the.lusercop'@lusercop.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > I'm not trolling. I really think that writing subs that pretend to be map
> > and grep or similar is not a way to, in general, write maintainable
> > code...
>
> Python and Java are that way --->
>
> Perl is not always elegant, and it may have mantraps in dusty corners, but
> it usually gets the job done and it often does a good job if treated with
> respect.

Nobody here is going to argue with that, although I'd s/mantraps/long
pieces of rope, powerful springs and very sharp pointy bits of metal/
:)

> Avoiding idiomatic Perl because you can't understand it, or have such a low
> opinion of Perl programmers and think they can't understand it, is doing
> everybody an injustice.

The problem is that some peoples idea of idiomatic perl can be hard to
maintain, I try to avoid using $_ in subs as it can allow you to make
silly mistakes, ditto implicit return values.

It's worth remembering that neither hideously verbose java or highly
idiomatic (especially written by people who seem to think that
production code is an opportunity to practise their perl golf skills)
perl is nice to deal with when you've been worken at 3am after a long
day.

I always try and think - if whoever is looking at this code, at 3 in
the morning and isn't familiar with it, can they see what is going on?
Because thats when people who know perl, or java will make silly
mistakes or miss some implicit goings on.

A.