Foo JH wrote:
David Ihnen wrote:
I think you've got it right there. We've got to get perl taught in
schools. That means perl experts need to be in teaching. And I have a
suspicion that perl doesn't appeal to the pure computer scientist very
well - these are the people who invented hard typed languages, after all.
In the academia the general directive in choosing a language would be
something to this effect:
1. teach modern language concepts, such as OO
2. minimise the learning curve by way of something easy to teach, easy
to learn without having to figure out all the details of programming
3. introduce the students to a language that will make them attractive
to the general market
You probably have a feel why Perl isn't a strong choice given these
objectives.
1. Perl does OO quite well.
2. Perl doesn't force you to learn all about typing and match all that
together, which is admittedly what gives me the biggest problems in
typed languages (admittedly because i'm such a experienced loosely typed
programmer) Thus making the language a shorter learning curve, IMO. A
misplaced ; is as much a problem in most any language, for details.
3. The general market will find perl more attractive with more trained
perl programmers entering the market... if whoever has the most leverage
wins we're dooomed, DOOMED I TELL YOU! no, not really. ;) I want to
see people starting new companies and new technologies with perl,
instead of the likes of Java and PHP. Set up the students to make their
own market - not fit into the slots of the current one - the academia is
always behind the time there.
Maybe it was better when they taught things like Modula-2 - not because
they think you're going to use it in your job - but because you need to
learn the patterns and processes of programming.
Perl was popular in the days when the people who go into software
courses do it for the sake of pure interest. These are the people who
are contented with Emacs or VIM, as long as they get to work with the codes.
I suppose we need more programmers than those programmers who are just
interested in coding? I never met a good programmer who wasn't
intrinsically interested in it.
Half of today's CompSci students are people who stumble in because they
haven't figured things out in life. The problem is made worse by Visual
Studio and Eclipse. I remember how Java was a painful experience before
someone finally put up a IDE that aids code visualisation and object
description.
Do we need to help those half of students into programming? Hm. Wash'm
out!
My personal belief is that Perl MUST move with the times. It's an
incredibly uphill task to change the market's mindset without a
commercial budget.
I Agree. Who has the time when not being paid?
I place my bets on Perl6. It's regrettably a slow process, but it's the
only sexy thing available on hand.
I agree. I have great optomism for perl 6's hit on the market and how
it will refresh the image of perl worldwide.
Pay them to do it in perl, and after they get through the learning curve
they'll probably be much happier with it.
Half the developers aren't the type who can appreciate a good language.
They can develop intensively for 5 years and they STILL haven't figured
out what is Regex. Trust me on this!
*cries* Say it ain't so, man!
Who cares? Hiding source code is valueless.
You haven't met the China folks have you? :)
No. What do they do in China with open code like open source code?
There's outright protection, there's deterrance, and there's leaving the
door open for every bad boy to muck it up.
Being able to analyze and apply a direct fix to code that is
malfunctioning is of such high value that making it impossible is a
serious handicap.
I keep thinking they're ashamed of their code thats why they want to
hide it.
David
