Programming
1. Why do you defend Perl so much?
Because it still works.
Most people complain about Perl because someone wrote sloppy code, but that is a sloppy argument. Sloppiness is not necessarily Perl’s fault; it is the fault of the programmer. It is possible to write sloppy phrases in any language.
Larry Wall is a linguist, and he knew what he was doing. The more you appreciate language, the more you will understand Perl. Also, Larry Wall is an unabashed Christian, which alone is enough to annoy most tech moguls.
2. Why do you insist that programming is easy?
Because it is, or it was until the accidental complexity (as Fred Brooks called it) took over. Nowadays, there is an entire industry focused on making things as confusing as possible.
There are only so many ways you can express if/else and while.
Anything beyond that are language peculiarities and personal
preference.
If you want to learn, then take a program apart and examine the pieces inside that program, what they do, how they fit together, and most importantly why each piece exists. If your program (or platform) makes that difficult (e.g. mobile phone OSes), then your computer is not a computer; it is an appliance. In that case, you should find a computer system that is easier to examine.