in reply to Re^5: How to PRINT CGI html table to a PNG file
in thread How to PRINT CGI html table to a PNG file

The topic is promoting old tech. This is valid Perl–

print &CGI'header;

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Suggesting you should use it will get you criticized. Defending the utility of older technology is one thing and it's fine and good in context and with caveats. Asserting, aggressively, asocially, it's as good as new technology, nay, better!, and should be chosen over it "because it still works" and ships on boxes that don't ship with npm, for a single example, does a huge disservice to the seekers of wisdom.

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Re^7: How to PRINT CGI html table to a PNG file
by Anonymous Monk on Aug 23, 2018 at 18:55 UTC
    > The topic is promoting old tech.

    What are you talking about? Criticizing functional software merely for its age is patently absurd commercial propaganda designed to keep people buying upgrades to intentionally broken programs. Everyone on this node who is not answering the OP's simple question about CGI and the other thing is off-topic trolling and should be downvoted. Seriously, what if the author of Template::Toolbox (or his goons) chimed into every node about Template::Toolkit to inform everyone how old TT is that it should not be recommended or used anymore, not even for your own private reasons whatsoever, without giving any convincing reasons, or any reasons at all. What the heck?

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      TT2 should not be recommended without caveats either and it’s always had detractors for being a mini-language instead of a pure template engine. Even so, exactly like CGI, I adore and use it. I’ll repeat, it’s the awful, combative superior tone mixed with dead-end chops that got my dog in the fight, not the fact that CGI is useful.

      Recommending the steam engine over the internal combustion engine is what you’re defending. Claiming web technology was somehow better 25 years ago… The whole planned obsolescence thing … it reeks of paranoia. Ageism… Good lord… The perception of enemies and pejoratives and conspiracies where none exists… no es correcto, ése.

      Seeker: What can I do to advance my Perl career and be a Perl expert?

      Monks: Well, CGI is fine, but really you ought to try–

      You: No! Those crusty fools have been bought by Big Web. Learn things that absolutely no one is hiring for and won’t work at all soon. That’s the key to ensuring Perl remains vibrant and vital with a new crop of hackers prepared for the future!

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        tone it down toxic avenger
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        > TT2 should not be recommended without caveats either

        That was just an example.

        > Recommending the steam engine over the internal
        > combustion engine is what you’re defending.

        I'm not recommending anything. Someone asked a question about the "steam engine" (CGI) and I answered it. You seem upset that "steam engines" are still used, because bosses force their workers to use "combustion engines" at work. Yet you still use the steam engine too. Are you a boss? You seem kinda bossy. Or just confused by them always bossing you around?

        > Claiming web technology was somehow better
        > 25 years ago

        Nothing has really changed. Layers have been built to expand the capabilities and new jargon spews from marketeers but everyone still uses 30 year old HTML tags and the basic protocol. Programmers used to be a more creative, self-taught and self-directed bunch but now an entire generation of newbs has been brainwashed by computer science departments to be addicted to theory and novelty because it drives the economy and churns jobs (pays for their yacht).

        > Those crusty fools have been bought by Big Web.

        As they have (goog didn't choose perl, after all...)

        > Learn things that absolutely no one is hiring for
        > and won’t work at all soon.

        Hiring? Tried that once and almost quit programming. Dumb rich managers telling smart poor programmers what to do didn't work out for me. It's much more satisfying as a hobby than a job. What do you mean by "won’t work at all soon"?

        > That’s the key to ensuring Perl remains vibrant and
        > vital with a new crop of hackers prepared for the future!

        Lots of keys to that but the one that got Perl popular with me and many others is the extreme ease with which clueless tinkering can get seriously impressive results. It also helped that those results occurred in a new and very relavant cultural context: the web and how it fulfills basic desires and needs to communicate. Newbies need to be taught how to make things happen, now. Learning to be a good programmer comes much later after one is hooked by success and sees the error of their old intuitive ways. Many teachers try to impose a positive outcome, but when we teach ourselves it is the negative outcomes that are most common and that drive the desire to learn in order to eliminate them. It's an ironic kind of paradox but we are territorial primates, not logical circuits. <blink>*Cheers*</blink>

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In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom