* On Fri, Jun 13 2008, Jonathan Tweed wrote: > On 13 Jun 2008, at 13:51, Jonathan Rockway wrote: > >> It all boils down to this. Catalyst is the only really useful Perl >> web >> framework. Perl is the only really useful language for writing web >> applications. So people are going to use Catalyst regardless of >> whether >> the background color on the website is #83f8e2 or #85f9ff. > > I think you're missing an 'if you only know Perl'. > > Otherwise you're just talking shit ;-)
I'll bite. I've written web applications in Java, PHP, Cold Fusion, Common Lisp, Haskell, and OCaml. None of these languages have anywhere near the number of libraries that Perl does, and as a result I either waste time reimplementing something trivial-but-tedious, or I settle for half-assed solutions. Java is close, but the syntax is so tedious it's hard to pay attention to the libraries. (PHP and CF aren't real programming languages, so it's not a surprise that there are no libraries.) The Python, Ruby, and Common Lisp communities all share the attitude towards libraries -- if it works for the author, it's perfect; as a result most of the libraries are half-assed special cases that may or may not be helpful. I don't know how Perl escaped this, but it did... most module authors feel obligated to make something generally useful. (Of course there's a lot of junk, but that's fine; nobody uses the junk libraries.) It's a real shame that Lisp doesn't have Perl's libraries, 'cause I really like it a lot better than Perl. It's just that it's not useful for anything. (Emacs Lisp is the exception; not that great of a programming language, but you can do anything in about 5 lines of code thanks to the extensive libraries. But I digress.) Regards, Jonathan Rockway -- print just => another => perl => hacker => if $,=$" _______________________________________________ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/