That's the question in Tim O'Reilly's latest Ask Tim column. And the answer he comes up with is "Yes" :)
There's also a comment from brian that points out a number of new O'Reilly Perl books due out in the next couple of months.
When I started learning Perl a year ago, I didn't even think about "relevancy". I picked a couple of projects I wanted to do and then I did them in Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl. This was scripts as well as Tk front ends for a couple things. Perl was the one that consistently let me get the work done (Tcl was second because it works with Tk better) with the least amount of surprise. Nothing comes close to CPAN and nothing comes close to the DBI. Those are two sweets assets for Perl.
Re:well...
sigzero on 2005-07-08T21:26:59
So the question then becomes: "Perl is relevent and therefore I publish books" or "I publish books hoping Perl is relevent".
I am betting it is the former.
Re:well...
jjohn on 2005-07-08T22:34:58
Are you taking odds on that bet?
Let's set aside Mr. O's comments for a bit and merely agree that perl is still relevant to a lot of us. It's the question of whether Perl can beat its competition for newbie mindshare that's the question. Wasn't it Mr. Ballmer who stridently urged his company to think in terms of developers, developers, developers, developers?
Re:well...
sigzero on 2005-07-09T01:15:00
That is an slightly different question...the question was is Perl still relevent. "Yes".Re:well...
hfb on 2005-07-09T06:30:01
I don't think it can as python and php simply listened, when perl was too pleased with itself at being inscrutable and clever, and made a number of easy to install mainstream applications that people seem to enjoy using. I still use MT, but nothing about that application is simple to install. I don't really use perl much at all anymore as awk and ruby offer much less pain.
Book people take gambles but, I don't know that perl book sales would make a programming language relevant. So, yes JJ...it's a sucker bet.:)
