I have to admit i'll answer only because you are BrowserUK: the post seems the nth little stone thrown in the lake..

Even if my experience is little and i focus only on Perl while speaking with machines I have some opinion about the future of Perl.

• Many smart peoples are still doing cool stuffs with Perl: one among other is PSGI. It is in nuce a possible rebirth of Perl as web language. There are also young ones between them. If they put their passion on Perl is reasonable they continue in such way. As the brain is getting older is more difficult to switch prospective and jump on another charriot.


• Even if i have no direct experience (because i'm a ten finger software house) the modern OOrientation of Moose and all the heard, made Perl newly suitable for large projects maintained by big group


• A philosofical consideration. Perl is a humanistic programming language. It not aims to fit the businness, it aims to fit the programmer. Things are getting everyday more complex and specialized, architectures are now a mess of layers of sofwares and hardwares where you need a storage admin, a network engineer, a bunch of various sysadmins AND two or more tech support services for the softwares you put in the field. Languages too are specializing a lot: i have seen big group of Java programmers working for months and using a lot of hardware to produce a simple (uh.. and bugged too) web interface. In such panorama people with cross experience are valuable like diamonds. This is an implicit limit of the 'develop by specialization' that is almost written in the DNA of the human being. Perl is the incarnation of the cross over programming or a humanistic example if you prefeere. I think you do not need examples. In the humanistic stance of Perl i see a lot future.


• That said, we had not to forget what people love (despite the market). Many peoples here around (me too even with no such big contribution, for the moment..) love Perl a lot: they release, port and enhance Perl every here and then. Take apart Perl6 for a moment: how many different releases of Perl have you used? i work a lot on windows systems.. oh i have Strawberry and i have it portable too.

Personally i see Perl in my future as the only sane interaction i can sustain with machines. I'm not a tech fun: i still have a nokia 1100 (the most valuable phone ever produced: it hit 25k $, but i'm digressing..) but tech is here around and, oh!, is my job too. Because i'm a lucky one, at the end of '90s during a 'bugs lab' to realize a little linux network with masquerading, the guy was teaching ended with: "..and if you have will and time to learn something focus on Perl, it is worth..". I followed the suggestion and i'm still very happy. why this had to change in the future?

Now you can express you opinion too BrowserUK, you are welcome.

L*

The future is not what it used to be.
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