Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 01:30:14PM -0500, John Tsangaris wrote: David Cantrell wrote: Sneaking in perl code is unprofessional. ... Again, you may be taking the statement a little too literally. Not to be offensive, but you seem to be taking a high horse stance on this. You just may be the first person I've met (virtually) that has never had to take an order from a business supervisor which trades doing it right for do it now. Oh sure I've been told to do that. I just make sure that my objections are noted, and then go ahead and do what I'm told. I've been bitten by *not* getting proper authority for doing things the nasty hacky way in the past, and I ain't gonna do it again. I like to cover my arse. Perhaps you need to take a step back and realize that english is not a programming language, and you do not have to interperet every line literally. Forgive me for thinking that people meant what they said. -- header FROM_DAVID_CANTRELLFrom =~ /david.cantrell/i describe FROM_DAVID_CANTRELLMessage is from David Cantrell scoreFROM_DAVID_CANTRELL15.72 # This figure from experimentation ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
Indeed. Keeping Perl as an island of elitism, which certification would threaten to obviate, is a self-serving, self-aggrandizing, self-preservative instinct at its finest. Caveat being that when Perl I think that certification would actually _increase_ the barriers to learning and using Perl, not decrease them. Certification, even for things which were in the past usually self taught such as Linux administration, etc. tends to be expensive and time-consuming, at best and completely worthless at worst (A+, anyone?). Managers, if there's a certification available, expect you to have it in many cases. As it stands now, any sysadmin, hacker or other person who cares can pick up a copy of the camel book, start noodling on CPAN and be competent at a minimal level in a week or two. Add a standard certification into the mix, wait 3 years, and how many of them will forgo it or use something else rather than expend the time and energy necessary to be a real Perl programmer? Me, I'd rather learn something because it's a good tool, not because it'll help me check the tickyboxes. - Kate (who's going back to lurking now.) ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] Perl Products [was: ....]
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 03:20:13PM -0500, Tom Metro wrote: Adam Turoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If Perl per se matters to you that much, then you should find some way to make it your day job. Hmmm...isn't that sort of what were talking about? If there's no job market for Perl, that's kinda hard to do. Even if you run a business where Perl is embedded, there are challenges to using it if the marketplace shows resistance to it. There are businesses and products that are built on Perl where the implementation language is not a concern. RT and Bricolage come to mind. Another model is focusing on service, rather than the deliverable. plusthree does a lot of work in perl/mod_perl, and develop an open source CMS called Krang. They deliver solutions to their market, use open source as a way of preserving value, and tangentially use Perl as a means to that end. Focusing on the small job market for Perl is a red herring. One of the benefits to Perl is that developers are more productive, so you need fewer of them. It doesn't matter that you don't get 1000 resumes for a Perl position; it _does_ matter that you can get the 2 or 5 Perl hackers you need to start a project. Sure, there's a class of problems where not having the '100% Java' seal of approval is the kiss of death. But that ignores a huge segment of the market that just doesn't care about what's inside. Z. ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
Not on a public list, no. You are free to ask the question, but not to expect others to constrain themselves to your arbitrary lines of response. It's not that people don't like you personally, it's just that we all feel kind of put upon to be told, don't say what you think, just let me noodle around on this list. It's exclusionary. You have as much a right to talk about certification's potential as someone else does to say it's a lose. I never excluded people. I was asking them to play a different game. And I asked those who didn't want to play, to find a different game. This is said without realizing the irony? There have been a multitude of reasonable responses to your emails, especially recently. You continue to try to play the martyr, even after people have given you good feedback and advice. I think it's time for you to either move the discussion forward with regards to the criticisms people have lodged or stop talking about it. You've gotten reasonable responses, you can no longer cry 'FUD'. andy ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
On Fri, 2005-03-04 at 07:54, Kate Wood wrote: [...] the barriers to learning and using Perl [...] Managers, [...] expect you to have [available certification] You do realize that those are orthoganal, right? What's more, I GUARANTEE you that I could go learn Java (for which there is a strong certification program), not get certified and get a job within 5 weeks. This is because I have a significant amount of relevant job experience, regardless of the language I'm programming in. What you're describing is a situation where it would become costly to break into the _professional_ Perl programming world as a _novice_ programmer. This is true, and that's just the way mature languages are... more and more people start looking for employees with some indication that they've been using the language for a long time. Try being a novice programmer breaking into the world of C++! Wow, there's a hard thing to do! And yet, C++ continues to thrive. Side note: If you're looking to break into programming, start contributing to open source projects. There's nothing more valuable than saying, well, I might not be certified, but I did write the software that runs your company. ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
andrew burke said: Not on a public list, no. You are free to ask the question, but not to expect others to constrain themselves to your arbitrary lines of response. It's not that people don't like you personally, it's just that we all feel kind of put upon to be told, don't say what you think, just let me noodle around on this list. It's exclusionary. You have as much a right to talk about certification's potential as someone else does to say it's a lose. I never excluded people. I was asking them to play a different game. And I asked those who didn't want to play, to find a different game. This is said without realizing the irony? Hey, where were you as Irony-Identifier when Aaron called me exclusionary in the same email that he me to take the converation off the list? I can't have a conversation about advocacy with the 4 or 5 pro-advocacy people without being called exclusionary? That's ironic? But its fine to tell me to take my perl advocacy conversation off the list because someone doesn't like it? That isn't ironic? There have been a multitude of reasonable responses to your emails, especially recently. You continue to try to play the martyr, even after people have given you good feedback and advice. a multitude of reasonable responses? It must be nice to be able to pick the worst of what I've said the best of what everyone else has replied, and honestly believe that it represents the whole of teh conversation. I know I blew my stack after a bunch of emails on socialists and bifucation. I admitted it awhile ago. I know that pulled the conversation off track. But I'm sick of hearing such a one-sided version of teh story that I'm a martyr and everone else has simply been reasonable, rational, and oh-so-level-headed. I think it's time for you to either move the discussion forward with regards to the criticisms people have lodged or stop talking about it. You've gotten reasonable responses, you can no longer cry 'FUD'. Are you moderating now? Why didn't you step in and moderate when people were crying socialism and bifucation of the whole perl community? people would stop maintaining their CPAN modules if certification were enacted. That's wehn teh conversation stopped moving forward. If moving the conversation forward is so important, why didn't you jump in back then and demand it? And now that it's been sufficiently killed, I should focus on the multitude of reasonable responses and move the conversation forward? forget it. it's dead. killed a long time ago. By my own doing apparently, because everyone else has been nothing but reasonable and rational and open to whatever conversation people want to have. Whatever. If that's the story you tell yourself to describe this, that's your choice. Just don't expect me to buy it. Now if you'll excuse me, the zookeeper is handing out bananas. ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] OT: O'Reilly
Hello Andy, I'm sorry I wasn't on this (off-topic) thread earlier, but I don't have time to read every mailing list every day. I do some casual Perl coding of my own and edited a few Perl books at O'Reilly in the past, but I'm not in the Perl loop these days. So I can't judge whether a particular book idea would interest the right editors here, but I don't mind people coming to me with proposals, and I can forward them to somebody if they look at all viable. great - expect to hear a few questions from me then. I have to wrap up man 1.6, and then I will focus on finishing the proposal. The proposals alias works, but it takes time and sometimes the person handling the alias has trouble deciding whom to send the proposal to. Still, if you list a language it will probably go to the right person. The proposal email is fine, but I wanted to ask a few things *before* sending in the proposal. So far as I know, the O'Reilly editors take ideas from outsiders all the time, and are particularly willing to listen to outsiders who have some connection and some standing in the community. (Although the complex relationships between O'Reilly and some of the people on this list would be scary to try to elucidate.) That's nice to hear - I was getting scared by some of the other replies ;) _ -- 'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge - Richard Fish Muad'Dib of Caladan (Federico L. Lucifredi)- Harvard University BU http://metcs.bu.edu/~lucifred ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
On Fri, 2005-03-04 at 14:02, Greg London wrote: andrew burke said: I never excluded people. I was asking them to play a different game. And I asked those who didn't want to play, to find a different game. This is said without realizing the irony? Hey, where were you as Irony-Identifier when Aaron called me exclusionary in the same email that he me to take the converation off the list? Let's review what I did say: You are free to ask the question, but not to expect others to constrain themselves to your arbitrary lines of response. It's not that people don't like you personally, it's just that we all feel kind of put upon to be told, don't say what you think, just let me noodle around on this list. It's exclusionary. [...] I don't like being given a list of what is impossible when I'm trying to play. Then form the play with Perl advocacy list, don't ask an existing list to re-form around your idea of what a valid discussion of certification and its value is. Aaron called me exclusionary No, he did not. He said that a specific act was exclusionary and it was. he [told?] me to take the converation [sic] off the list No, he did not. He told you that if you wanted a list with different ground-rules, you should create your own. You can have this conversation here, you just can't control the types of responses. For that, you need your own list. Can we stop tilting at straw men now and talk about Perl? Oh, and while I'm thinking about dinner (don't ask), I want to mention that there is an AWESOME new Chinese restaurant in Allston called Shanghai Gate. If we can arrange an off-peak time to go (they get packed around 7-9PM) that would be a very nice hang-out for the next informal Food.pm ;-) http://www.boston.com/dining/globe_review/1101 ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] [ADMIN] Another request from the list admin
Hey all, If you have something worthwhile to contribute to the discussion on Perl certification or Perl popularity, please feel free to do so. That said, consider that this list may not be the best forum to actually get something started. If you just want to write a post analyzing the behavior of other participants in the discussion, feel free to do that, but please don't send it to the list. thanks, Ronald (Ah, for the good old days of arguments about cold Guinness!) ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: social-ism, was Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
CD == Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CD On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Aaron Sherman wrote: Oh, and while I'm thinking about dinner (don't ask), I want to mention that there is an AWESOME new Chinese restaurant in Allston called Shanghai Gate. If we can arrange an off-peak time to go (they get packed around 7-9PM) that would be a very nice hang-out for the next informal Food.pm ;-) http://www.boston.com/dining/globe_review/1101 i read about this place too (same article i think) and drove by it the other day. i am near there somewhat regularly. i will check it out for lunch some time soonish. CD Are you Advocating for this restaraunt then ? how popular is it? will it take over the chinese food problem space from others? what about the loyalists to other places? what does larry think about it (i doubt he can eat there with his gastronomic issues)? CD Has the place been Certified ? by the board of health? CD Do they offer a variety of Courses ? or is it the same ol' chinese menu of hot and sour, kung pao /.*/, lo mein, ... CD Can we expect food fights if we all go there ? :-) i will recruit general gao to lead my army! (nyc spells it tso ??). i will use the kung pao fist to beat on my enemy and the tao of programming as my guide. my soldiers will be the shaolin soccer team. your fortune cookie reads, you will lose badly (in bed). actually, sounds like a good idea. i don't recall a social meeting at any asian places ever. parking there can be a bitch (corner of comm ave and harvard). uri -- Uri Guttman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.stemsystems.com --Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding- Search or Offer Perl Jobs http://jobs.perl.org ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: social-ism, was Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Uri Guttman wrote: i will recruit general gao to lead my army! (nyc spells it tso ??). i will use the kung pao fist to beat on my enemy and the tao of programming as my guide. my soldiers will be the shaolin soccer team. your fortune cookie reads, you will lose badly (in bed). I've noticed that in bed isn't the only amusing fortune cookie suffix: with a certain crowd, using emacs works almost as well: you will lose badly (using emacs) Sounds about right to me :-) -- Chris Devers ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] CERTIFIABLE: a play in one act
Bogart Salzberg wrote: I put some of our recent posts on the certification issue into a blender and this is what came out. Wow, I can't say I've ever seen a flame war summarized as a play before. Impressive. I can't wait for the movie. -Tom ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Be careful what you ask for! RE: [Boston.pm] CERTIFIABLE: a play in one act
I can't wait for the movie. As the fortune cookie says, Be careful what you ask for! (in bed | with emacs | with vi | with Perl | with Python ) A mockumentary / dramedy on bickering camelophiles is not out of the question, as * We had Fashion Photos taken at the last Boston.PM meeting. * There are at least *two* Boston.PM members taking Film classes at different local universities. * One of them did a documentary assignment on BLU.org @ LinuxWorld. Since this script is a dramatization in a comic vein, I guess this Perlish comic mocumentary would have to be called a dromedary. (*ducks*) Bill NOT speaking for the firm (as should be obvious) (*aflack*) ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] CERTIFIABLE: a play in one act
On Friday, March 4, 2005, at 04:41 PM, Tom Metro wrote: Bogart Salzberg wrote: I put some of our recent posts on the certification issue into a blender and this is what came out. Wow, I can't say I've ever seen a flame war summarized as a play before. Impressive. I can't wait for the movie. -Tom Perhaps we have just seen the next step in the evolution of Perl culture. On stage dramatizations of Classic Perl polemics. Any body want to create an oil painting of the debate? ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] name your monkey
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=624ncid=624e=4u=/ap/20050304/ap_on_sc/new_monkey_name Now THAT is thinking outside the box. an organization auctioned off the rights to name a new species of monkey for $650,000. proceeds went to help their habitat. I wonder if the naming rights to perl 6 would pay enough to give the guys working on it a salary long enough for them to finish it by christmas. Ooooh, look, bananas... ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
David Cantrell wrote: ...if desperate you have to wonder *why* they are desperate - what is it about them that has kept them unemployed? If their skills were unmarketable why could they not learn new skills? You do realize that we're in the midst of a discussion pondering the very question of whether Perl (by itself/as a career) is a marketable skill. Presumably one learns new skills either as a side effect of a project, or because they've intentionally decided that their current skills are no longer sufficient. And how do they decide that? By looking at the job market, by looking at trends, and by discussing the issue with colleagues. Given this, it's safe to assume that several members of Boston.pm (such as myself) are currently wondering if Perl no longer has a sufficient market support for it to be the top line skill, and whether they should start (or continue) refocusing their careers such that some other language becomes their primary area of expertise. (At least for those of us for which Perl isn't already a side-line.) 2. Even if the job market doesn't influence your use of Perl, you might care about popularity if you'd rather be able to use the latest and greatest applications - wikis, forums, blogs, whatever - and customize them without having to learn PHP, Python, or Java. Sure. But then, I refuse to be a one trick pony. While my weapon of choice is perl, I can also wield Java or C... Well good for you. Most of us have a laundry list of languages on our resume, but that doesn't mean we look forward to wading through poorly written PHP code (not to imply that all PHP code is poorly written or that Perl code might not also be poorly written). -Tom ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] CPAN
John Redford wrote: You are right about CPAN. CPAN's hugeness and uneven quality... ... How can I know if Bob's brand new version 0.03 module is better than Joe's 3-year old version 9.72 module? I see this problem as insoluble... CPANTS (http://cpants.dev.zsi.at/) is probably a step in the right direction (though it doesn't appear to be linked to from search.cpan.org - right?). I see in my bookmarks Perl Monks Module Reviews (http://perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=30794), which seems to be a bit limited, and somewhat stale. Also not linked to from search.cpan.org. The ratings (on cpanratings.perl.org) linked to from search.cpan.org sometimes help. But one of the gaps is finding comparative information. i.e. is Net::Server better or worse than Net::Daemon? And for what kinds of problems? Given that equivalent modules are often not grouped together in the hierarchy, just finding out what the other modules are can be a challenge. I chatted with Ask about adding some mechanism to search.cpan.org to allow linking to related modules, and he was open to the idea, and welcomed me to volunteer code to implement it. Unfortunately I didn't follow through by providing said code. Perhaps a Boston.pm'er might want to collaborate on this. -Tom ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
