Re: Perl and the Future

My personal take on the “popularity,” or perceived lack-thereof, of the Perl language ... is that it is irrelevant. There is always a new language coming along, and new projects might be started in one of those. But the vast majority of software that is in-service is so-called “legacy” software ... existing software, mission-critical, and by the way “it works just fine, thankye.” Therefore, one of the most important “life skills” for any professional programmer, in my opinion, is adaptability. To quickly learn how a system was written and how to maintain that system without attempting to rewrite it. You could say exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons, about any legacy system that was written in Python, Ruby, or Lua.

<<language_x>> does not need to be popular with the up-and-coming generations in order to be relevant, and most of the languages they’re advocating right now will in due course become “cool” if measured by the same yardstick. (They just don’t know it yet.)

. . .

Aside: And as for “what’s about to become very significant, especially in the apps/mobile world, I will cordially suggest that something’s on-the-scene now that will ... along with other tools in the same vein ... sweep both web-development and app-development off its feet, by introducing the notion of compiling one strongly-typed(!) source language to multiple native targets. That revolutionary language is called Haxe, along with OpenFL which is built on top of it. You won’t be writing directly in JavaScript anymore, nor will you be running around on “HTML5 website-in-an-icon crutches” when you want to deploy a mobile app, or wondering if device-X has enough market potential for you to “start over from scratch” writing “your app” for it. That toolset hasn’t yet hit the main stream, but it is illustrative of just what kinds of changes can occur. These are not “yet another way of doing the same thing in the same way,” but a fundamental and disruptive change in the way that things are done which meaningfully addresses the costs of doing it.

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Re^2: Perl and the Future by mr_mischief (Monsignor) on Mar 30, 2015 at 19:15 UTC
I put together a few things in Haxe several years ago. It is nice to be able to use the same core language with JavaScript, ActionScript, direct to Flash, NekoVM, or C++ source. I see there's an even better selection of targets now. At the time, there were separate libraries for each target some of which had overlapping things I felt could be combined into a more standard library. Is there more common ground and less target-specific stuff these days?	[reply]
Re^2: Perl and the Future by kmadhyan (Initiate) on Mar 31, 2015 at 08:31 UTC
I have been the Perl Developer for last 8 years. I believe the Perl Community is not providing any professional certifications. It could have been a great tool to market the language. Still believe Perl is great language but lacks the marketing skills. Also Perl 5.000 was released on October 17, 1994. It has been almost 20 years Perl Community has been releasing the maintenance releases, World had been Waiting eagerly for Perl 6.	[reply]
Re^3: Perl and the Future by Anonymous Monk on Mar 31, 2015 at 08:45 UTC
professional certifications Cerifications for Perl maintenance releases No, they're more than just maintenance releases, read the `perl5*delta`s and enjoy the new features. Also some great new modules have come along - Moose, Mojolicious, etc. Sorry, but if you believe the things you are writing, I suggest that it possible that it is you who hasn't been keeping up-to-date, not Perl.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Perl and the Future by einhverfr (Friar) on Apr 16, 2015 at 12:14 UTC
It has been almost 20 years Perl Community has been releasing the maintenance releases, World had been Waiting eagerly for Perl 6. I see why people get that impression. However, when you get down to it, Perl 6 (which I understand to be expected to be out this year) really is a different language. I am not sure whether I like it or not (it definitely has a second system feel to it). Yes, Perl 5 came out just over 20 years ago. But the last 5 years have been quite different than what came before. Perl 5 is a great language (I also like REBOL btw), and one of the real strengths is the fact that it has the flexibility to move between OO and other paradigms quite easily. Not everything is an object like it is in Python, Javascript, or Perl 6.... I don't see Perl 6 supplanting Perl 5 any more than C++ has supplanted C. Yes they will have different niches but.... more likely they will grow up together,	[reply]