I disagree with the attitude of not trying to expand perl's utilization beyond what it is currently being used for. It seems to me that if perl folk embrace that philosophy it will fade as a once popular 'fad' language. Finding new innovative ways to use perl is part of what the language is about.

Currently 'speed to market' is a huge key variable in web application development. Nothing beats perl for rapid prototyping. Additionaly I don't know what Larry put in perl that gave it it's 'people power', but this too is a quality that large MIS Departments can only strive for. I don't know any other language that is as FUN as perl, and the 'fun' factor is everything to anyone that works with code for a living.

What is frustrating is that the powers that be in the perl community could solve the problems of Perl in the enterprise simply by providing easier methods for perl's installation by decentralizing it's core distribution modules. In other words making the default installation according to the user's enviornment. While the mechanisms exitst for such installations, documentation is scarce, (References would be appreciated), and they are far from the default. MAKING PERL'S DEFAULT INSTALLATION CONTINGENT UPON THE INSTALLING USER'S ENVIORNMENT RESOLVES THE MAJORITY OF ISSUES SURROUNDING PERL IN LARGE ENTERPRISE ENVIORNMENTS. Furthermore, it makes ISP system administration, and standard system administration easier as well. It also eliminates the mess in /usr/local/lib that comes with utilizing the different perl rev's/distros

This appears to be a mostly trivial change for perl that could open huge doors for the language. The failure of perl people to see the benifits of coming through that door cause me to worry that perl is having a hard time getting past it's adolesence and taking it's well deserved place in large scale commercial application development. What if the original system administrators that exploited perl didn't extend it's use into the web because it was only good as a sysadmin tool?

coreolyn Duct tape devotee.