Comment I think perl is going to die soon. (Score 1) 323
Looking at this "periodic table" of operators reinforced my view that perl is not going to last much longer as a real player in computer languages. There is a complexity threshold in computer languages which, once exceeded, makes people not want to use the language any more. Perl 5 was already pushing that threshold pretty hard, and now perl 6 has just got right off the deep end. Most people are just going to switch to python (I did a long time ago, and never looked back). And even python is getting too complicated!
I think what language designers forget is that humans have to learn that massive rule set before they can use the language effectively (not to mention in order to read other peoples' code). What they should do instead of piling on features is to provide ways for users to add their own features if necessary (provide meta-features if you will). So, for instance, in Haskell you can define your own operators, which have to consist of characters from a predefined operator set. If you are reading Haskell code and see an operator which is not familiar, it's probably part of the application and you know where to look for its definition. Also, you can use any binary function as an operator by surrounding it with backticks. Simple, and no periodic table needed. In lisp or scheme this issue doesn't even come up, because there is no difference between functions and operators at all.
I think computer languages should be judged not so much by how many features they have but by how many features they allow users to add for themselves.
I think what language designers forget is that humans have to learn that massive rule set before they can use the language effectively (not to mention in order to read other peoples' code). What they should do instead of piling on features is to provide ways for users to add their own features if necessary (provide meta-features if you will). So, for instance, in Haskell you can define your own operators, which have to consist of characters from a predefined operator set. If you are reading Haskell code and see an operator which is not familiar, it's probably part of the application and you know where to look for its definition. Also, you can use any binary function as an operator by surrounding it with backticks. Simple, and no periodic table needed. In lisp or scheme this issue doesn't even come up, because there is no difference between functions and operators at all.
I think computer languages should be judged not so much by how many features they have but by how many features they allow users to add for themselves.
