On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Greg London wrote: > Chris Devers said: > > Advocacy *doesn't* work well. > > > But beyond keeping sites like that prominent, there's not really a lot > > that can be done, pragmatically speaking, that seems likely to help. > > This is the same "I can't see how it will work, > so it must not be possible" line of reasoning.
Maybe that's how it came across, but it isn't what I intended. I think it would be nice if Perl were more popular. I don't think advocacy is a bad thing. I don't think certification, or courses, are unreasonable. But of the ways I can think of to make Perl more popular, I'm not sure that any of these will be more effective than simply writing great software that a lot of people benefit from: setting up a certification program; setting up a marketing campaign; ranting about the matter endlessly on mailing lists; shouting down people who think that having more great software would be a good thing. But I could easily be speculating wrongly. Maybe rants do work! > Just because you can't see an answer, > doesn't mean the bazaar couldn't come up with one. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. > > Adam's points are reasonable. > > > > I don't see why he's being attacked for voicing them. > > Adam gave an artificial either/or condition. If you say so; he seemed a lot more reasonable & non-ranty than a lot of the messages I've seen in this thread, but YMseems-toV. > If you prohibit them from doing what they want > that doesn't mean they'll suddenly do what YOU want. I'm not "prohibiting" anyone from doing anything. > If someone wants to advocate, telling them > they should write cool perl scripts instead, > means they might end up doing nothing. What does "advocate" mean, to you, in this sentence? Grassroots word of mouth encouragement for Perl use? I have no problem with that. Taking out a full page ad in the New York Times? I'd be willing to give that a try. Setting up a certification program? I'd consider participating in that. Writing endless wailing mailing list screeds? This one, and only this one, I have a problem with. This whole damned thread is a tempest in a teapot. What are people even arguing about? The point, if there ever was one, was lost a long time ago. At this point all I'm "advocating" for is that all reasonable points of view -- which includes both you, Sean, and Adam -- be given reasonable consideration, rather than just pointless diatribes, so that we can actually get some kind of clarity from all this endless verbiage. But obviously, I seem to be in the minority opinion. -- Chris Devers _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
