web script jockey crisis

This is a VERY interesting topic. ++rinceWind.

I use Perl primarily for browser based scripts. Since today most applications connect to internet it's an easyier way to do it, not mentioning it's more cheap to the client, wich means - at least in my country - that you have more chances to get the job.

I'd LOVE to learn how to use Perl to do more than web-based apps, but all the documentation I've found seems to be too confusing. GTK here, Win32::GUI there and I keep wondering what to use, how to use, "Is there a way to program in perl that can run on a machine that doesn't have the interpreter?"

I'm writing a pretty small simple app that is DOS based, because of the reasons I've just told you. I'm starting to take some serious thoughts about learning C++ or Java for the same reasons. And the worst thing is that I feel I'm not the only one. It's incredible how the Java market is expanding here in Brazil. I'm becoming affraid to lose jobs because the only lang I know and like to program is Perl.

I think there is a lack of good and easy to take tutorials and docs about this issue.

Oh, I'd like to defend Matt a little. I don't know him, but I think we must give him some credit for popularizing Perl. If wasn't for him, maybe I'd never looked into a Perl script and fell in love with it like I did. It was because of the scipts I've found there that I was interested in learning Perl. Since then I'm writing huge web apps, so I'm pretty happy that I've once found MSA.

Well, that's it, brothers - almost a short version of my programming life :)

Your tortured-soul-web-script-jockey :)

Er Galvão Abbott
a.k.a. Lobo, DaWolf
Webdeveloper

Comment on web script jockey crisis

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Re: web script jockey crisis by davorg (Chancellor) on Apr 16, 2002 at 07:45 UTC
I'd like to defend Matt a little. I don't know him, but I think we must give him some credit for popularizing Perl. If wasn't for him, maybe I'd never looked into a Perl script and fell in love with it like I did. It was because of the scipts I've found there that I was interested in learning Perl. Since then I'm writing huge web apps, so I'm pretty happy that I've once found MSA. Remember that Perl was being used for CGI before Matt and his scripts came along. This was because the original webmasters were the same sysadmins who had found Perl to be a great language for all their shell scripting needs. Matt may have popularised Perl, but he also did a great deal of damage to its reputation. A large number of people see Perl as a "script-kiddies toy" and as a language to be avoided for writing enterprise level applications. We know they are wrong, but I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to persuade them otherwise. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg	[reply]
Re: Re: web script jockey crisis by davorg (Chancellor) on Apr 17, 2002 at 09:45 UTC
he [Matt Wright] also did a great deal of damage to its [Perl's] reputation I should probably explain what I mean by contentious statements like that. For a significant proportion of people (especially those who aren't career programmers) their first exposure to Perl is seeing one of Matt's scripts. Matt has said that when he wrote the scripts he was just learning to program. Therefore the code in the scripts is often over-complex and difficult to understand. I think this makes a significant contribution to Perl's reputation as a "write-only" language. This isn't helped by the number of people who seem to equate popularity with quality and assume that Matt's scripts are good examples of well-written Perl. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg	[reply]