Perl: How did you get hooked?
One of the fine gentlemen I work with recently blogged about how he started out with Perl and it got me thinking about why Perl currently seems to be failing to drive the interest it so rightfully deserves.
Perhaps by thinking about how developers select a language we are more likely to understand why Perl doesn’t get the numbers. I personally can’t even remember how I started out on Perl, it was that long ago. I suspect it was because PHP wasn’t even around, and it was the most obvious choice for a dynamic site, or more likely page at the time.
So what are we doing to attract new developers to the wondrous Perl? CPAN offers a great resource for developers who already work with Perl, but what is there for developers new to Perl? Or more importantly what is there to actually entice them to Perl. Every virtual corner you turn someone is mentioning PHP or Ruby on Rails, but Perl seems to be less “down with the kids”.
Let me be the first to admit, I certainly don’t have the answers, but perhaps by looking at how we got the Perl bug, we can come up with some ideas how to hook in more users.
Recently on the Catalyst mailing list was a thread about the press release detailing the latest 5.8 version and discussions turned to the “outlandish claims” that PHP and Ruby evangelists make. But I find my self wondering do we do enough to actually proclaim the things that Perl does well?
Now I realise I’m ranting, but it’s entirely possible that I’ll need to be looking for a new job in the near future and I’m not entirely convinced I’ll be able to get one working with Perl. I’d love to be able to blame this on someone, but to be honest it’s entirely our own fault. As Perl developers we simply aren’t doing enough!
2 comments
Come to the darkside.
Universality, transparency, extensibility, dependability.
A decade plus ago, I was Windows-based and looking around for a
scripting language to “wrap around” a cross-assembler’s failing build using Borland ‘make’ and force it to work right. Having heard about Perl, I set up the BC-based 5.04.002 (the precursor to ActiveState), bought the Camel book and waded in, and soon had that complicated build working my way with single-point control of parameters.
That was the start. From then on, I was more likely to begin a project in Perl, even if that was prototyping for eventual C or assembly code. Whatever I thought about doing (converting text-token streams into a MIDI file? watching for intruder hosts on my network? quick-and-dirty data-scooping CGI?), there was a straightforward way to do it in Perl. I got more done because Perl was just-high-enough to relieve me of the grunt-work stuff (like malloc-fiddling) while leaving me in charge of program design and composition. I migrated to Linux; Perl was there waiting for me, and working even better for not having to fight the OS. CPAN is as much an education as a resource, with library code I can read and recast when I have to minimize the memory-cost of module pull-in, or use as-is when time is more scarce than system resources.
Perhaps that should be the sales message: the new languages are up-and-coming, but Perl5 is already *there*, a ready universal (How often do you see PHP run at the commandline? Ruby? How are they at GUI?) tool with solid foundations and ample auxiliary resources.
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