in reply to Perl's Niche
in thread why i may have to leave perl...

Perl was originally intended for parsing and printing formatted reports.

When was the last time you personally used formats? (merlyn can skip that question. :-)

Perl has changed niches before and undoubtably will in the future. Please don't lose sight of the fact that Perl was meant to evolve over time. As long as that happens within reason, it can do that and keep its flavour. Just as it has in the past.

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RE: RE: Perl's Niche
by Nitsuj (Hermit) on Aug 10, 2000 at 21:40 UTC
    Yes, but change and evolution takes time.
    Perl as we know it has evolved over many years.
    And I do love the language.
    Heck, if you want to change the package management and such of it, go right ahead.
    What I am saying though, is don't use it for a purpose that it is not CURRENTLY designed for, that will only cause it's audience to shrink, rather than grow.

    Just Another Perl Backpacker
      There are people who still use Perl for its original purpose and simply love formats.

      Have no concern, the people guiding development know the language very well and care deeply about where it is coming from. I have confidence that in the end things will work out and the language will be better than ever. There may be a few bumps on the way, but I trust the process.

      This is all IMHO of course.

        Oh yeah, I trust the Perl Porters and everyone involved with CPAN totally, even with my children, if I had kids that is ;-) But maybe not with all my harddrives (gotta draw the line somewhere <G>). At any rate, I just saw a FEW posts in this thread, which, while they were wonderful ideas, they were trying to use systems for things that they were not intended for, when there are equivalent systems in existance, that just aren't entirely perl based, and I see nothing wrong with using these systems, in the roles that they were designed for, rather than trying to extend the role of a system in a less than optimal manner, you know?

        Just Another Perl Backpacker