>>>>> "Peter" == Peter William Lount <peter at smalltalk.org> writes:

Peter> Well it's not meant as a swear word exactly. It's meant as a comparison
Peter> between the simple Smalltalk syntax and the complex mess that is the
Peter> Perl syntax.

I completely agree that Smalltalk's *syntax* is simple.

However, in any useful system, the "complexity" is a constant.  If you
simplify one thing, you complicate something else.  In Smalltalk, the
complexity shows up when you realize how much of the class libraries you have
to learn just to do anything simple.  In Perl, the complexity shows up when
you have to start learning the "contractions" (just as "can not" is replaced
by "can't", in Perl "readline ARGV" can be replaced by "<>").

It's all a matter of taste and area of application as to where you want the
complexity to show up.  You've shown your bias, and others would disagree, and
that's fine.  Just don't think your assessment is universal, and we can all
get along.

That's what I mean by "not using Perl as a swear word". It's not universally
loathed. :)

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