Freshmeat indicates that, relative to Python and other languages, Perl isn't seeing as much code released.
-- David N. Welton, Python "Surpasses" Perl?
Given that CPAN and perl.org provides announcement services, project history, bug tracking, documentation hosting, smoke testing, and download mirroring and all you have to do is upload a tarball to PAUSE, I wonder instead why a Perl developer would make an announcement on Freshmeat. I could likewise prove that there are no good writers on the Internet by surveying popular fan fiction sites, seeing as how that's exactly where they don't hang out.
I enjoy a good rant as much as anyone, but if you're going to ruin it with research, at least make a puzzle out of how you propped up your conclusions.
Perhaps his method of counting is flawed. But, in the interest of making the right thing more easy, perhaps this is an argument for perl folks to announce and advertise their software on more places than just CPAN. Having a centralized software repository like CPAN is great for a number of reasons, but one of its weaknesses is that it can't reach the people who don't know about it. If we announce our software in places like Fresmeat, it's possible that we can make it easier for non-perlers to discover and use our software.
To make this easier and more common, I wonder if it would be reasonable to have a part of our toolchain hit the Freshmeat API after uploading to CPAN. That way, once an author prepares a tarball to push to CPAN, she can use the same Makefile or similar to alert freshmeat of a new release of her software if she desires.
I think I'll go add a few pieces of perl software to freshmeat and investigate a way to make it easier to let freshmeat know when new versions arrive.
Re:An argument for announcing releases on Freshmea
chromatic on 2008-12-27T22:13:04
Great idea; I wish I'd thought to suggest that when I posted.
Re:An argument for announcing releases on Freshmea
Ron Savage on 2008-12-28T02:12:55
So why don't we announce all
/pre-existing/ modules on Freshmeat, not just to flood them, but to emphasise the vast wealth of Perl code available? Jeezuz, someone could even write a Perl program to do that
:-)))). Yeah, yeah, I know. Someone somewhere would blame the language, not the uploader.
It's a pity Freshmeat and/or it's supporters see Freshmeat as the center of the universe, as if a Perl user would look there first anyway, or ever.
If someone is going to try to redress this, please make sure that it's a method that compatible with people like me that have 100+ modules.
That's the main reason I don't do any of this shit, maintenance is a nightmare.
This graph - of the absolute numbers - shows small growth or stagnation for Perl, big growth for Python and PHP.
Of course this can be flawed as well. e.g if the perl developers tend to use private version control while other use publicly available ones or if the perl programmers tend to make less frequent commits.
Re:There is more Perl than Python on Freshmeat
Aristotle on 2008-12-31T13:53:00
When pondering this question, don’t forget to look at the trend in rate of uploads at CPAN.
Re:There is more Perl than Python on Freshmeat
draegtun on 2009-01-07T14:50:34
Unfortunately your blog post no longer accepts comments so I've made my last reply on my blog at http://draegtun.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/freshmeat-perl-figures-rebuttal/
I think you'll now clearly see that Freshmeat is clearly out of sync with the Perl world.
/I3az/
PS. I'm not into stirring language wars etc. However while you're here and not to pollute either of our blogs I do feel your continuing usage of statements like "Python... is growing, whereas Perl hasn't" & "However, it (Perl) is not as popular as it once was, in terms of new code being written" etc is just plain FUD on your part. If u want langpop.com to remain impartial then u should avoid going down this route.
