in reply to Perl falls victim to shifting trends
Nothing really new to add - just confirming the opinions already express. I'm turning into a PHB, having done Perl development for the last few years, and now being in charge of the new wave of Java development at my company. I am involved in both sides of the argument and can see both the advantages and disadvantages of each.
To me it has always boiled down to "the right tool for the right job" and Perl has been a pretty good tool. Unfortunately, most management decisions aren't based on such simple logic. We will keep using Perl for most of the supporting systems, monitoring tools and other related tasks. Our main production code will be Java for the reasons mentioned above - "Java is standard", and "there are many more, easily replacable, Java programmers than there are Perl programmers".
What I am finding, from experience, is that 1) It takes a lot more hardware to to run an equivalent site under Java than it does under Perl, 2) Java programmers cost more than Perl programmers, 3) Not everyone that claims to be a Java programmer, is really qualified for the job, 4) everything seems to take longer to develop using Java, and 5) Good programmers are hard to find.
A disturbing trend, but that is the direction things seem to be moving.
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