Getting some programmers to come up with a list of things they are thankful for in their favorite programming language is like getting a recalcitrant teenager to say grace at a family dinner. Something about the act of giving thanks seems to make us feel embarrassed and extremely uncool. Most people wouldn’t even bother asking, but this Thanksgiving we decided to make a certain Perl developer squirm a bit for his turkey dinner.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a list of things I’m apparently thankful for with relation to Perl:
I’m not really good at writing sappy lists like that, but I guess I have to give it a try:
I’m thankful for Perl,
- for all the wonderful people working together to improve it,
- for the abundance of freely available modules on CPAN,
- for letting me express myself concisely, and
- for already being there, wherever I go.
Oh, and I’m happy to let you publish all these together under Troy’s name. 🙂
So there you have it. I guess I’m not shy about expressing my love of Perl.
Seriously though, I’m thankful (yes, really me this time) for ActivePerl and PPM. I remember discovering Perl and CPAN a few years before coming to work at ActiveState, and being amazed that there seemed to be a module for everything. I also remember trying (and failing) to solve build issues with my very limited knowledge of makefiles and compilers. Besides being ActiveState’s proverbial bread and butter, I’m thankful for ActivePerl because it allows me to be a Perl user without needing to be a Perl guru.