I agree with a lot of your points. My point about Perl is that there are not enough apps. Python has continued to add medical space stuff. Perl has the UMLS stuff and BioPerl but the former is difficult to install, takes up a lot of disk, and requires external licensing steps and the latter was, the last time I looked in semi-functional disarray as, like you mentioned, it's a hodgepodge to account for hodgepodges. I despise Word but LaTeX is terribly hard to use if your project doesn’t conform exactly to an existing package and a non-programmer would have almost zero chance of getting a project done with it in such case. I don’t think we need indoctrination. We need good, easy to use, tools. When programmers have a problem to solve they reach for the most feature complete, robust, and dev friendly tool.

Agree too that there are not enough apps, though I get constantly surprised learning from posts in here about various cool apps like for example mobile Perl etc.

But isn't it that in order to "account for hodgepodges" and making apps, a good deal of times it requires some kind of sponsorship, if not a full-time salary? Sure people do Perl packages for fun&free but the motivation (which I always try to understand from their cpan pods) most of the time (?) is because it helps them at their dayjobs and get sponsored via company (e.g. Sereal. I wonder about CGI.pm)? Less so because of hobby, like the rasberry work I see posted here from time to time.

I wonder where competitor langs get their sponsorship to have apps for every little thing out there: is it that they are so super-productive that in language X you make a tool in 5 days and in another in 5 months (yeah right)?

Where does R devs get payment for the immense work they put in for a package (and the loss of brain cells it incurred)? Usually it works like this: you are given some funding for academic research, you disseminate your work via some publications and computer programs, libraries, software packages you distribute for free containing your algorithm. Some may chose R, some may chose C++ or Java, some python. What about Perl? Do they still consider it a language which reaches the public enough in order to write their researched algorithms in it? For example Algorithm::Evolutionary may be the fruit of such a process but what about the norm? Then who gives the funding in the first place? In this part of the world is EU Horizon2020, so you write a research proposal and say I will disseminate my algorithm using BASIC or HP calculator magnetic cards. Will they (peer-reviewed) agree to fund you? In the private sector you have consortiums and groups promoting some technology and will be willing to fund people for writing drivers and API for their products in various languages, e.g. Perl. Do they still do it nowadays? (re: Tensorflow)

LaTex: hmmmm lately someone shown me R Notebooks (kind of forced me to it really). You type your R code and voom, you get a PDF out with the code and the outcome of every line, (simple! every stdout goes to the PDF as well as each graphics device output). That's great. LaTeX plays a very big part in this system, I believe 100%?. (Apropos, that gave me the idea of doing Perl Notebooks: where code and stdout are formatted and go to PDF, I asked a few questions in the Monastery about redirecting stdout to files, looks feasible, ongoing project). So a "hard-to-use" tool (but robust and complete otherwise, IMO) is used behind the scenes kind of like a turbo engine for some plastic car. And nobody notices :(

That engine btw is also used in WYSIWYG editors (personally I was grown doing it all by hand and makefiles) but stil said editors popularity is minimal. Unexplained?

When programmers have a problem to solve they reach for the most feature complete, robust, and dev friendly tool.

Maybe that's wishing or what it used to be in the past? After all illogical, counter-productive, counter-intuitive actions are more-and-more characterising business and personal life. So I would not assume that. Nope. Maybe today they stick to the inside of their comfort zone and what gloglo algorithm shows them at the top of their searches? Which is tuned for not getting them out of their comfort zone in the first place?

OK, let's not call it "indoctrination" but Marketing (mentioned already in thread) and Carrot (without the stick, for Perl at least, i never stick my camel).

Anyway, I would too want Perl to be greater that it is and logic and common sense prevail everywhere.

P.S. personally, I would sooner shutdown than start selling Perl on Marketing outlets!

My point about Perl is that there are not enough apps.

I propose a perlmonk's poll to find out some info about developers of Perl modules. e.g. motivation (work,hobby,fun,had free time between jobs,etc.) or sponsorship (paid by research funding, work, unpaid) etc. experience (student, working, private, public, university, etc.)

bw, bliako

Pretty sure that Glasgow University still teach a class on Perl for Bioinformatics.

I don't doubt that and Glasgow University is great with lots of diversity (I know personally through some failed interviews, unfortunately). But what about the rest? Plus, even if biologists wanted to use perl-based solutions would IT dept provide training for it? Or would they subtly drop the "how about python? It's a modern language everyone loves" in one of the meetings?

Or would they subtly drop the "how about python? It's a modern language everyone loves" in one of the meetings?

This link was looking for a couch to surf, thank you:

Perl, the first postmodern computer language
http:/wall.org/~larry/pm.html