Re^2: The future of Perl?

I would say:

Perl hasn't had a vibrant community for the last 3 or even 5 years.
The last time it felt vibrant to me was when the PUGS project was running.
In the last 10 years there have been 5 major shifts in the software/IT ecosystem:
- The first was truly large-scale web serving.
- The second was hadoop.
- The third multi-core hardware.
- The fourth was the smartphone/tablet ecosystem.
- The fifth is the cloud.
Perl has no presence in any of these technologies; and each of them supplants or marginalises technologies where Perl did have a presence. In each case, where there were existing Perl projects, they have been replaced entirely by completely new code in other languages.
Not (necessarily) because the new language was better then Perl; but because Perl simply wasn't available.
Any existing Perl code does not need maintenance, because it is just gone.In what few small niches it still persists; it won't last for long. Certainly not 10 years; maybe 5.
Agreed.
Agreed.

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Comment on Re^2: The future of Perl?

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Re^3: The future of Perl? by morgon (Priest) on Nov 06, 2014 at 14:13 UTC
You seem to have a very strict definition of "vibrant". The way I look at it: - Perl is still maintained - CPAN still grows - sites like this still exist - books about Perl are still written - conferences are regularly held For my rather modest requirements that is "vibrant" - and I expect that to continue for some time... And there is still Perl-code around that I expect will still last for a long time, simply because rewriting that would mean reverse-engineering a lot of very old and poorly documented code which nobody wants to do. But true - those are only some niches. So yes - depressingly the "future" seems to be rather bleak...	[reply]

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Re^3: The future of Perl?
by morgon (Priest) on Nov 06, 2014 at 14:13 UTC

The way I look at it:

- Perl is still maintained
- CPAN still grows
- sites like this still exist
- books about Perl are still written
- conferences are regularly held

For my rather modest requirements that is "vibrant" - and I expect that to continue for some time...

And there is still Perl-code around that I expect will still last for a long time, simply because rewriting that would mean reverse-engineering a lot of very old and poorly documented code which nobody wants to do. But true - those are only some niches.

So yes - depressingly the "future" seems to be rather bleak...

[reply]