----- Original Message ----
> From: David Stewart <david.stew...@eviesays.com>
> To: modperl <modperl@perl.apache.org>
> Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 6:39:08 PM
> Subject: Re: decline and fall of modperl?
> I'm not really sure why it wouldn't be a good idea to try and educate
> consultants about the value of Perl / mod_perl.
That's called advocacy, and as I said before, there's a mailing list set
up for that for people who actually want to *do* some of that instead of
issue general gripes on a thread called "decline and fall of mod_perl".
I don't mean to suggest that such activity is unimportant, just to point
out again that it's not topical on a user support list like this one.
> It seems to be consultants have a lot of influence over what tools get
> used for projects they work on. The fact that many don't have much if
> any exposure/knowledge of Perl and mod_perl certainly hurts the Perl
> community.
> Discussing the advantages / disadvantages
> of Perl and mod_perl so that we can all help educate the consultants and
> institutions we work with about how mod_perl can benefit certain projects
> seems
> like a rather important task.
[...more advocacy stuff...]
> It's hard to argue that Latin is on the same footing as English when Latin is
> only spoken by a tiny handful of people even though it has a lot of great
> history. Technology, like language, generally lives and dies by its
> user-base.
> Usage is also directly related to developer enthusiasm in most cases. A
> developer isn't going to want to spend time maintaining a module if no one is
> using it.
Having lots of users of your code doesn't necessarily translate to
putting food on a developer's dinner table. TicketMaster funded a lot
of the work that went into mod_perl2, largely out of their own self-
interest, but that is a *contribution* that many of us are thankful for.
> It's a lot easier to justify spending weeks or months getting a
> module ready for CPAN if you have some reasonable expectation that a lot of
> people are going to benefit from it.
I would like to think that ego stroking isn't what motivates developers
to write perl code. They do it because the perl community is still by
and large a gift culture, and if you want to be a full partner in the
community you really should pony up to the table and contribute something.
Whether or not 10 people use your code or 100,000, if your users are happy
and you are approachable regarding bug reports, then the fact that you
are *contributing* to intellectual assets a user community means
something.
