Perhaps I'm just in a pessimistic mood, but what makes you think we Perl use is growing, and not shrinking? Esp as a percentage, I think it's shrinking. People are moving away from perl solutions into PHP and Java, and even, alas and alack, VB.

I suspect the major problem is that people confuse Perl, the language, with all the things that have been associated with Perl over it's long history. (Yes, long, compared to PHP and Java.) Specificly, people get Perl and CGI confused (perl is slow compared to PHP!) and Perl5 and Perl4 confused (Perl isn't suited for large projects).

Even worse, there's the impression (correct and self-perpetuating) for busniesspeople that any random you pick up will know Java, PHP, and VB. For those just learning, there's the impression that busniesspeople want to hire people that know Java, PHP, and VB, and don't care about Perl.

What I want to know is if we know how to change these vicious cycles, or if I should just bite the bullet, and start branching out more into languages with more resume-power.

Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

In reply to Re: Abstract: rate of popular growth for Perl by theorbtwo
in thread Abstract: rate of popular growth for Perl by Tommy

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.