Is Perl on its way out the door?

[DaveLembke]

The College course I am currently attending, my instructor suggested that I work in PHP with web interface to MySQL Server. He pointed us to W3Schools. https://www.w3schools.com/default.asp

At the W3Schools website there is nothing there for Perl, which to me might mean that its time has come and passed maybe since W3Schools didnt offer this, but they offer other important and useful tutorials.

So just kind of curious if Perl is on its way out and Python and PHP is the future for the web, or if it was just that W3Schools just decided not to offer a Perl tutorial?

[BC_Programmer]

W3Schools not offering any tutorials for a given language doesn't mean anything other than that they didn't provide a tutorial for that language.

C# via ASP.NET as well as Java and a bunch of other languages often get use in the back-end. They don't offer any tutorials for those either.

Remember W3Schools is NOT official in any way.

[DaveLembke]

Remember W3Schools is NOT official in any way.

Ok cool... Thanks BC

For college course to use it as a reference for students, never knew it wasn't really official. 

[Geek-9pm]

From a search...

10 most in-demand tech skills

    Python. A high-level, general-purpose programming language introduced in 1991. ...
    Java. Java is a general-purpose, high-level programming language that was developed with as few implementation dependencies as possible. ...
    Cloud services. ...
    Linux. ...
    JavaScript. ...
    SQL. ...
    Matlab. ...
    HTML.

[DaveLembke]

Hi Geek, found your url 3rd down on search for "10 most in-demand tech skills" ... Perl is #9 on list.


https://www.cio.com/article/3196975/it-skills-training/10-most-in-demand-tech-skills.html

1. Python

A high-level, general-purpose programming language introduced in 1991. Python has become a core language for data science and continues to be a mainstay for back-end web application development.

2. Java

Java is a general-purpose, high-level programming language that was developed with as few implementation dependencies as possible. It's consistently one of the most used languages in e-commerce and back-end, server-side business applications, as well as the foundation of most Android applications, because its "write once, run anywhere" capabilities allow it to be used across multiple platforms.

3. Cloud services

This meta skill around cloud computing, which provides shared computing power, services and infrastructure on-demand, allows for building and maintaining cloud-based applications that can be deployed quickly and scaled elastically.

[ Related story: Why AI careers can start with a degree in linguistics ]

4. Linux

The Unix-like computer operating system built under the model of free and open-source software and application development, is the preferred operating system for open source engineers and programmers. Today, Linux forms the backend of most of the top 100 websites.

5. JavaScript

The high-level, dynamic, untyped and interpreted runtime language of interactivity on the web, with more lines of JavaScript written each day than many of the more well-known, top languages like Java or Python.

6. SQL

The domain-specific programming language standard for storing and retrieving data in an application, SQL -- or, Structured Query Language -- is the main pillar of the relational database systems (RDBS) that most apps are built on.

[ Related story: 10 best cities for women in tech ]

7. Matlab

This older, mathematics manipulation language with roots as far back as the 1980s is devoted to applied mathematics and used heavily in science and engineering; with big data dominating headlines, it's no surprise it's seeing a resurgence.

8. HTML

All webpages and many applications use HTML to define the content within a page, making it a required skill for doing almost anything that touches the web or displays web-formatted information. The most current version is HTML5.

9. Perl

A stable and versatile scripting and data extraction language, Perl's traditional popularity and presence in legacy web code is the main reason why it's still a requirement for many jobs.

[ Related story: 6 Leadership qualities to look for when hiring ]

10. Go

A relatively new language -- less than 10 years old -- created by Google with a reputation for processing speed and low latency. Because of these qualities, it's great for networking and web servers, stand-alone command-line apps and scripts. It's not well-suited, however, for desktop or GUI-based apps or system-level programming.

[Geek-9pm]

For what it is worth...
Many once trendy computer programming languages do not show up very often in a search. But people are still using them or want to learn.

I had to learn assembly language mostly on my own.

Here are some things that might be important to some students:

    The number of courses sold by programming bootcamps
    The number of students enrolled in programming classes around the world
    The number of videos on each language on YouTube
    The number of postings on Reddit or Stack Exchange about a language

More important are methods to teach how to solve problems.
EDIT: Some code that got my eye.

Code: [Select]

LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START
IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY = LIKE TUBULAR AND
VALLEY GIRL = LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN
FOR I = LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100
DO*WAH - (DITTY**2)
BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT)
SURE
LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM
REALLY
LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW)
IM*SURE
GOTO THE MALL
Source:
http://quarkphysics.ca/humour/humor10.html

[DaveLembke]

IF statement had me laughing. 

[BC_Programmer]

Also even "dead" languages like COBOL and FORTRAN have demand that heavily outstrips the supply, entirely because nobody wants to or thinks they should learn it.

[nil]

Perl has a reputation for being easy to write but difficult to maintain, unless it is written specifically for that purpose. Whereas a language like Python has the rep of being easy to maintain no matter what, due to its stricter, simpler, more universally legible syntax.

In my own experience, Perl is versatile and flexible, with modules for everything under the sun. But, so is Python, and it has greater advantages in a group/team/collaboration setting.

If you were going to ask for a recommendation between the two, I'd say go with Python, because it has broader industry support, and a BDFL (Guido Van Rossum) who demonstrates focused leadership and has a clear vision for the direction the language will take.

But there is nothing stopping you from learning and trying both, which is probably a good idea, because ultimately you're the one who has to write in the language, so you should choose the one that most closely suits your own expressive style as a programmer. Just my two cents

[DaveLembke]

Thanks for everyones input on this.

Its been ages since I worked with Cobol. I got it along with an 8088 that I picked up in the early 1990s on the cheap. A friend of mines uncle had some books on it and he leant me them to poke around Cobol but I found my love of the time in the style of Basic, since I started with Basic on my TRS-80 Model 1 with 16k RAM. But having worked mainly with Basic and GW-Basic at School around 1987, I loaded up GW-Basic on DOS 2.11 and did most of my programing in that until exposed to QBasic with DOS 5.0. I liked GW-Basic's features  with colors and sound and it ran pretty well to make some games, although I hit the 64k limit with it because I was horrible with memory management and reuse.

I took a liking to Python, but took Perl through Virtual University about 13 years ago for the cost of taking 4 courses a semester for $20 total, ( their pricing has since changed ) and liked how Perl has lots of powerful functions built into it so you can type up a few lines of code and achieve the same outcome as what may take 25 lines of code in C++.

At some point I will dig deeper into Python, its easy to follow but I just need a project that is in it that causes me to spend more time in it. For me its usually that there is someone elses code that I am working with that draws me into languages they are written in, I then learn by example or dabbling in them to add features or tweak it to my needs or curiosity. Seen some cool games created that have python in the background for ARM devices etc. At some point I will dig deeper into it. Its good to be familiar with a bunch of different languages, and the strength in them comes with putting in the time with the code and troubleshooting and having others point them in the right direction.

[Geek-9pm]

Do you have Active Perl?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_0hQ_1X_L8