Ovid started a large thread about how
Perl 5 is dying.
Instead of arguing if TIOBE measures it correctly or not or if you think Perl
(in general, not just 5) is going down or if you think it is doing well,
let's think about what to do in order to make it more popular?
If for nothing else so we can feel better that we are using something that is popular.
Lately I have been thinking that maybe the biggest issue of Perl is that it is not friendly enough to beginners. Especially Windows users. So I try to Make it friendlier to beginners, especially those using Windows.
That means for me, creating an IDE that will have
I am sure some others will think that this is a good investment in the future of Perl. You are welcome to join us.
Others will think this is a total waste of time but something else is needed.
What do you do to undie Perl?
Re:Why do people use any language?
stinkingpig on 2008-12-05T01:32:09
It's still all about CPAN. I write a maintenance utility for my company's product, which runs on Windows 2003 and supports MS-SQL and Oracle databases. I use ActiveState's products to compile.exe's and hide the Perl from the users. I started with Perl because I already knew it and didn't need to buy a new toolset; I keep using it because CPAN keeps making the job easier. When I needed to produce historical graphs, I brought in an RRD module and it just worked. When I needed to check a web page for something, I brought in LWP and it just worked. I'm able to add significant value without un-fun levels of work. I also like that I can use Perltidy and PerlCritic to ensure that my code is clean and neat before I publish; the vim plugins make that easy too.
That's what draws me to Perl; what pushes me away is the fact that a lot of those awesome CPAN modules are unmaintained or don't work as well on Windows. I can't go to Perl 5.10 because I need modules that aren't updated. I have to detect if a directory is on a network drive because stat() won't work (yes, I know that's core, not CPAN). RRD files have to be written to cwd because a Win32 path name makes the module barf. All my path names have to be converted to 8.3 short names to ensure proper handling. The memory usage of Perl is through the roof, my program uses 45 mb just to load its CPAN modules and connect to the database.
It's not enough to drive me to reinventing the wheel in Python, but it's troubling.
I think that Perl, as a flexible programming language and a great tool, as a great collection of modules in CPAN, or as a community of experienced developers, has everything that's needed for success. It has even more.
It is great (and also very necessary) that we argue about sigils and try to make language even better, take it to the next level, but that's not really the biggest thing people are looking for when evaluating the tools for their jobs at hand.
What really is missing, is good marketing and positive fuzz created by friendly looking web sites and success stories. For example this site, use.perl.org, and the actual entry page to the language (that comes up when you google for "perl"), www.perl.org, are very "-99". Sorry to say, but just awful.
Luckily the Perl community has many extremely talented, experienced and productive developers, but the current situation (with the web sites and marketing in general) makes it hard to attract new people with new ideas and new uses for our tools.
Re:Perl has everything
pnu on 2008-12-03T21:54:51
Sorry, I should have said that the layout and presentation is awful. The content is excellent and first-class.
Re:Topaz?
chromatic on 2008-12-04T05:34:16
Oh sure, you laugh when you bring it up....
Re:Topaz?
Ovid on 2008-12-04T09:40:39
Heh
:)
They keep talking how superior our tools for writing Web 2.0 apps are and I believe them. If only I had a clue about writing software for the web.
Seems like at just the right moment there's a reasonably good way to show off what Catalyst, Mojo, and the other cool kids can do:
http://incubator.apache.org/olio/
My comment to the Perl Gurus at the BBC: I'm in a decision maker position in a big international Software Company. We're moving forward to use Perl more and more and we will use all the wonderful things like Catalyst, DBIx::Class, TT, Moose, mod_perl even MORE in the future for all of our front-end and back-end development. So, if you don't find any good Perl developers on the market, then go and hire people who're good developers in other languages (like Java, PHP, and so on) and TEACH them to become good Perl developers. Do INVEST in people instead of just try to benefit from what is already there!
A few years ago, I run my own Software Company and I was in the same situation at that time (yes, even in 1999/2000 it was hard to find Senior Perl Devs). What we did was that we hired junior devs and students who were willing to learn something new in a short time and then we did internal trainings with them. It's really not that hard to learn Perl for a OO developer - it usually takes a few learning sessions most of the time to get people started. If you're using standard frameworks like Catalyst the learning curve is very high and the results are exciting.
And yes, there are way more PHP or Java devs on the market. But, for example, try to find a Senior PHP Developer and you will fail. Try to find a really good Java Developer who is fast, flexible and has more background knowledge than what he had learned at the University; good luck.
What I'm saying is: Blogging about Perl and spreading the word is necessary, yes. But companies have the money and the power to change things by teaching people and make them become good Perl developers.
(Please excuse my bad english. It's not my mother language
Re:Teach developers Perl!
ihrd on 2008-12-06T09:27:27
Cool success story!
I have small webdev company in small Russian city now. We use Perl in all our works, no one do that here at all. I`m developer and manager too, and I always say our clients -- we use Perl this is good for you. And when we done good work, our clients know cause -- we use Perl:) I hope my company grow up, we working hard for that.
(Please excuse my awful English too
:-)
I try to run and make a local Perl Mongers group alive. +Helped to organize local Perl Workshop. +Blog about Perl in my local language. +Write and maintain CPAN modules.
In my opinion, Perl is not for everyone and certainly not for masses. Perl is a language for technical based people, not designers and managers that's why the look and marketing is not on the first place.
Still quality products makes good publicity. I'm really sceptic about projects like starting new editor. As with anything new now, to start it's easy but even to catch up with today "market products" takes extremely lot of time and energy. That's why I've send, some ti ago, a comment to one of the Padre blogs - "why another editor?". Now I've spend some time looking at Padre and it looks really promising, if it doesn't loose it's first acceleration. There is a team that's working on it and it's localized with plugins already. Well it's the environment of OpenSource - everyone is doing what he likes, not what he has to (like in day job). Let's see how far Padre will make it.
