From: "Joel Bernstein" <j...@fysh.org>
- It is the most easy to learn language even by the most stupid
programmers.
I'd rather it were optimised for competent programmers. Sorry, I just
don't see the value here. Stupid programmers are part of the problem.
I don't understand. What is the problem? That perl is useless for most
programmers because they are stupid?
The majority of programmers will be always less intelligent than those few
very inteligent ones.
Why it is bad that a language like PHP is more useful for more programmers?
- It can create portable programs that can run everywhere, under Windows,
Mac, Linux, shared hosting web sites that don't offer root and shell
access...
Perl programs are typically extremely portable, and perl runs on many
more platforms than those you have listed. Shared hosting websites ought
to be able to run Perl applications uploaded with a local::lib tree and
so on.
I've tried to install some perl modules under Windows and I couldn't do it.
Then I found that they can't run under Windows. This doesn't mean
portability.
I have also tried to use Local::Lib but very many modules use to give errors
when trying to install them using -MCPAN -e ... and I didn't know how to use
this syntax but also use "force" like in
cpan> force install ModuleName
(Please tell me if you know how)
- The source code of the programs can be hidden.
No. This issue needs to be solved through contractual means. There are
options to limit the ease with which your code can be recovered but they
don't raise the bar very far. And more importantly they aren't solving
the right problem. If you can't make money on new development, support
contracts, training etc, maybe your business model is flawed.
You don't know how things work in other countries.
Nobody cares about a contracts for software licences in my country.
- Perl is chosen by bigger companies like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Sun,
Yahoo, Google, SAP.
This one's solved. More than half of those companies are publicly
documented to use Perl. Possibly not to support their core products,
but still, Perl.
Maybe, but who knows this?
The target audience should be the students, the future possible perl
programmers.
- The popular sites like Twitter, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Wikipedia, are
powered by perl.
There are popular sites like BBC News, Vox, Ticketmaster, Shopzilla,
Takkle, BBC iPlayer, Editgrid, IUseThis, YouPorn, MighTyV and so on.
Mostly using Catalyst. Some of those definitely exist in the "web 2.0"
space you seem to be focussing on. Is there some cognitive dissonance
here on my part, in that the sites you list are mostly particularly
news-worthy ones? I think the list I put out is pretty impressive and
is certainly not exhaustive.
Yes, as I said, if we want perl to be really the best for most programmers,
it would be important to promote it for the new programmers, and they are
the teenagers, and those sites target to them.
For them perl shouldn't appear as classic mahogany furniture, but as cool
nice coloured plastic, because otherwise it would appear as old and boring
while RoR and Python will sound much better.
- There are important other software made in Perl which are used much
these days, like a mailing list manager, a web server, financial charting
software, stock exchange trading applications, etc.
Not sure how to address these. I've seen a MLM in Perl (Siesta) but
people didn't want to hack on it. Mailman works well enough for most
people's needs.
Oh yes, but it is made in Python, and some programmers might find that even
in the field of mailing list managers we passed from Majordomo made in perl
to Mailmain made in Python... maybe because Python is better... not?
There's also good charting support on the CPAN, etc. Can you give
examples of open source financial analysis, stock trading etc
applications in other languages?
Why should they be open source? Perl could be also used in commercial
proprietary programs, and unfortunately in some countries it is very hard to
earn money from open source.
This is why I said that the software companies prefer Java, because nobody
considers that it is something bad if a program made in Java is not open
source.
Octavian
