Bigots gonna bigot. Perl is an unorthodox language; Larry would probably prefer eclectic. It’s tough being the different kid. As paulg wrote, “The superficial demands of orthodoxy make it an inexpensive substitute for virtue. And that in turn is one of the reasons orthodoxy is so attractive to bad people. You could be a horrible person, and yet as long as you’re orthodox, you’re better than everyone who isn’t.”

> Three great virtues of programming are laziness, impatience, and hubris. Great Perl programmers embrace those virtues. So do Open Source developers.

> But here I’m going to talk about some other virtues: diligence, patience, and humility.

> If you think these sound like the opposite, you’re right. If you think a single community can’t embrace opposing values, then you should spend more time with Perl. After all, there’s more than one way to do it.

For those who don't know :

"The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience and Hubris." - Perl man page

And Perl was the opposite of this anecdote: the most brilliant engineers I've met in my career were Perl monks, as they would call themselves. I respect Perl for that :)

So my aversion to Perl could be considered a pragmatic solution to that problem. :-)

Now let me unpack that. I'm curious to see if you reply and whether we arrive at middle ground.

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> in practice [Perl's use of operators] makes Perl programs more difficult to maintain than they should be

This is an old saw but do you agree that it is a misstatement of what's actually going on:

* Some Perl programmers, especially experienced ones, have made and continue to make Perl programs, including large ones, EASIER to maintain than they could be and would be if written by a similarly strong programmer using the deliberately dumbed down language Python.

* Some Perl programmers, especially beginners, have made and/or continue to make Perl programs, mostly small ones, more difficult to maintain than they should be and would be if written by a similarly weak programmer using a deliberately dumbed down language like Python.

Perhaps your response to that is something like "Oh sure, I just meant most programs I see because they're mostly small and written by inexperienced programmers."

If not, how modern are the Perl programs of which you speak? Much has changed since 2000 and especially in the 2010s: Perl 5 has stabilized around a wise view of the language, interpreter, and how to be respectful of each others' failings; Perl 6 has radically dialed back the complicated built in availability of terribly cryptic symbol aliases as part of a complete rethink of what it means to be a Perl language.

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As for the "hate speech" aspect:

>> Of course, it's definitely possible to overdo this -- then you get Perl.

> That's the Guido we know and love.

The above was the entirety of by far the highest voted comment in the python reddit post about this article.

I posted the following in sardonic response, which also got upvoted:

Guido:

> Once you've internalized the simple properties which operators tend to have, using + for string or list concatenation becomes more readable than a pure OO notation, and (2) and (3) above explain (in part) why that is.

Larry:

> But it contradicts property (1). That's (in part) why I did not use + for string and list concatenation in Perls. Then again I used it for adding floats, even though that contradicts property (1) too. And changed my mind about what symbol to use between Perl 5 and Perl 6. Heck, who cares about consistency?

Guido:

> I care. I consistently hate on Perl and Python users consistently love me doing so.

I generally find Guido's and the Python community's intolerant attitude consistent with the above and with this exchange about the same article on twitter:

> Random nit: you've got a "font-size: 85%" in the CSS for your posts. Mind removing that, so those of us with our default font-size set deliberately don't have to squint?

Guido:

> I'm sorry, I have no interest in CSS hacking. The template is what it is. Deal with it.

Guido's riposte also got lots of hearts (presumably to soothe or applaud their beloved ex-BDFL).

I note the follow up got nothing from Guido:

> It's a single-line deletion, and would improve the accessibility of your blog, but sure ok.

There's zero chance Larry would have thought and spoken as Guido did and he absolutely would have made that single line deletion out of respect for the person whose eyesight wasn't as good as others'. The same attitude applies to improving the language and culture.

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How familiar are you with current Perl activity?

I see a new Perl emerging, one that will unfold throughout the 2020s. I see a well entrenched self-reinforcing tolerant attitude in Perl culture, even of those who like to use too many operators for my liking.

1) Any programmer who writes this line of code as anything other than a lesson in obfuscation should be taken out and shot.

2) Speaking as a Perl programmer who has maintained others' code, _many_ Perl programmers should be taken out and shot.

How about: "Except for pathological constructs that should probably be avoided anyway, the Perl that most people write can be parsed just fine." As I see it, the Perl attitude is that these constructs should be forbidden by social contract rather than by the language itself. Sort of like the farmer who refuses to put a lock on his fuel pumps in case someone really needs to fill a tank in an emergency.