The Future of Perl Programming - Will Businesses Adopt It?

During its commercial release, Perl 5 was considered by developers as one of the most versatile programming languages in the world. As a high level language, Perl was also used widely by developers in both scripting and non-scripting context. But a number of recent reports have highlighted a steady decline in the popularity of Perl within less than two decades.

At present, developers have option to access two distinct versions of the programming language, Perl 5 and Perl 6. Perl 6 is also designed as a fresh language initiative, and comes with a set of features completely different from Perl 5. However, there are still a number of factors that prevent businesses from adopting this dynamic and interpreted programming language.

Factors that Negatively Impact the Adoptability of Perl among Businesses

Interpreted Language

A programming language is defined according to the way it is implemented. As Perl in an interpreted language, the source code written in it cannot be translated or compiled directly. This feature makes Perl more flexible and versatile. But the feature also affects the adoptability of Perl among modern business with reduced speed. Further, the programming language affects the performance of the software by consuming additional memory.

Do not Facilitate Clean Coding

Nowadays, most programmers explore ways to keep their code clean and structured. But Perl does not allow programmers to write clean code by default. For instance, in Perl programming all variables are by default declared as global. So the programmers have to declare specific variables as lexical to control their scope. Many programmers even opt for alternative programming language like Ruby or Python to write clean code without putting any extra effort.

Backward Compatibility

Its backward compatibility makes Perl 5 popular among many businesses. But the feature makes the programming language carry a lot of baggage. Further, many programmers find Perl implementation to be crusty due to certain features. For instance, features like indirect method call syntax, no strict by default, smart match, inefficient exceptions and poor overloading affects the popularity of the programming language among modern developers.

Two Distinct Languages

Each developer now has option to choose from two different versions of the programming language. But Perl 5 and Perl 6 are completely different languages. Perl 6 is even designed a completely new language without any backward compatibility. But many developers are not aware of the major differences between Perl 5 and Perl 6. So both versions of Perl fail to appeal to new businesses.

No Successor to Perl 5

Despite being dynamic and feature-rich, Perl 5 is not flawless. So the programming language must be updated with innovative features and bug fixes. To fix some of these flaws, Perl 5 has to sacrifice its backward compatibility feature. Further, the version number needs to be bumped to make developers aware of the improved version of Perl 5.

Erroneous Promotional Strategy

The adoptability of both Perl 5 and Perl 6 is being affected negatively by the erroneous marketing strategy. The advent of Perl 6 is also having a negative impact on the community of Perl 5 developers. There are also many developers outside the Perl community who are not interested in learning an interpreted language that is dying slowly. As many businesses have already invested time, effort and money in Perl 5 programming, they also hesitate to migrate to a version that is a marketed as a completely separate language.

However, no business can ignore some of the most prominent benefits provided by Perl. The Perl 5 programmers can always avail several features like regular expressions, pattern matching, string manipulation and file manipulation. Further, the programming language can also be used for web application development and CGI scripts. At present, the language is also available for most of the widely used platforms and operating systems. If you are planning to hire service of Perl web application companies, you must evaluate them to see if they are sufficiently agile or not!

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