Re^2: How would you rewrite perl community?

I agree with you!

Perl community is great - but never say never - there is always room for improvement.

Perl (IMHO) needs not just standards but many more things (that are more or less related to standards). Things like better advocacy (in general - not just for enterprises), more schools/universities teaching Perl and maybe even some sort of certification.

But when you think about it, all that would come as a result of increased interest of enterprise market?

O and maybe it's just me - but I had a hard time when I started learning Perl. Somehow I feel that real beginners in Perl don't have enough quality sources - and even those that exist aren't promoted well.

And then it ends up in people trying to read get/post params by hand (CGI.pm) or trying to make sort of templating system with regexp for each variable you want to include (HTML::Template) working directly with flat text databases (DBI.pm) ... Well it's how I started :)

Only good thing about it was the feeling that I had when I found out about those things in () and how Perl is even better than I thought before that :)

Comment on Re^2: How would you rewrite perl community?

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Re^3: How would you rewrite perl community? by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Jul 11, 2005 at 23:39 UTC
How many quality sources do you need? There are several good beginner books on Perl, the learn.perl.org website, the beginners mailing list, and many places to ask Perl questions. Both perl.com and perl.org link to these resources, and they show up in a lot of answers. Lots of people have a hard time learning any new subject, but that's because it's new. Think of it like driving in a city you haven't been to before. As for re-inventing the wheel, that's just going to happen. It's a stage of development. If you wanted to solve that however, you wouldn't be solving a Perl problem because that programmer would have the same re-invention problem in any language. The real problem is that you can't have instant, expert experience. Indeed, Simon Cozens talks about this in Advanced Perl Programming (and in my interview with him). But now that you've started all this, how about making some concrete suggestions? Out of all the things that a lot of volunteers are doing for free to promote Perl, what more do you want? As I said in my first reply, there are people who do things, and there are people who talk about things. Which one are you going to be? -- brian d foy <brian@stonehenge.com>	[reply]
Re^4: How would you rewrite perl community? by techcode (Hermit) on Jul 12, 2005 at 09:54 UTC
How many quality sources do you need? There are several good beginner books on Perl, the learn.perl.org website, the beginners mailing list, and many places to ask Perl questions. Both perl.com and perl.org link to these resources, and they show up in a lot of answers. I've heard this one long time ago : It's enough only when you are being punched. I also dont see a reason why there shouldnt be more sources? Anyway could you imagine living in Serbia (or any similar country)? No I don't want to start talk about all shitty things like wars and whatever. Problem I faced is that there were (virtually) no credit cards and only book I could buy here was - Perl : The Complete Reference which isn't really for the starter ... Lots of people have a hard time learning any new subject, but that's because it's new. Think of it like driving in a city you haven't been to before. Yeah but it's much easier if you have a map of the city ... a detailed one is even better, you know, one that shows which streets are one way (and in what direction) and stuff like that. I agree that some things we simply need to learn on our own (the harder way) by making those same mistackes. As I said in my first reply, there are people who do things, and there are people who talk about things. Which one are you going to be? Well if everything goes right, my first article is going to be published on perl.com. Further, I plan to start (yet another) perl site - targeted especially to beginners. Thought about it for a long time but I couldn't find enough time ...	[reply]
Re^5: How would you rewrite perl community? by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Jul 12, 2005 at 19:29 UTC
Instead of starting a new site, you could put your energy into improving, expanding, and promoting an existing site, such as learn.perl.org. Although you say that there are not enough sources, I say that there are really too many. A lot of people working on a lot of sites makes for a lot of little known sites. I've been around for quite a bit and heard a lot of people say they were going to start a beginner's website. Still, I can't think of any but the one I've already mentioned. A handful of people working on the same site can make something everyone will remember and visit. -- brian d foy <brian@stonehenge.com>	[reply]
Re^6: How would you rewrite perl community? by techcode (Hermit) on Jul 12, 2005 at 21:42 UTC
Re^7: How would you rewrite perl community? by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Jul 12, 2005 at 22:37 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^3: How would you rewrite perl community? by Steve_p (Priest) on Jul 13, 2005 at 04:00 UTC
From what I've seen, poor code comes from poor or inexperienced programmers. If you start a project and decide to use (enter language here), but have no programmers who have ever programmed extensively with (enter language here), you will have problem with the code that comes out of the project. This is nothing particular to Perl. I've seen some pretty pathetic Java and C# from programmers who thought they could write code with those languages.	[reply]