Doesn't matter what one's personal preference is, as an industry trend, I recognize that languages with nice IDE attract programmers and their leaders/managers much easier.

If it is less clear how IDE contributed to Java's success, it is certainly one of the key facts that quickly promoted .NET framework, and made it a success. C# is not much different from Java as a language, but Microsoft is certainly very good at providing IDE, especially when the IDE comes from the same vendor that made the language and made the OS.

Perl has areas it fits the best, when there are also areas that it just cannot fit in. GUI is one clear example of such area. Without a nice IDE, coding GUI programs with productivity is impossible.

A good integrated IDE often increases efficiency in development/debugging/testing. That's another key one needs to consider.

But as I said, perl still has areas it fits much better than other languages. Will Perl fade out one day? Remember lots of other languages have extinct already. So will java and C#. That's not a scary thing, on the contrary, it is a good thing to the IT industry. It will be much scary if the entire industry stalls, and everybody stuck with existing technologies (although improvements might be made to them from time to time)

To add to this statement:

Doesn't matter what one's personal preference is, as an industry trend, I recognize that languages with nice IDE attract programmers and their leaders/managers much easier.

Developer tools that speed up development make developers happy. If I can use a tool that helps me move functions around, great. It saves me time w/ refactoring. Autocomplete is nice, 'cause though I type 80wpm, I can't remember every (*&$#@ function name in some languages, like php, or java.

POD is neat 'cause it's anywhere-readble documentation so long as it's written. JavaDoc requires a webbrowser or an IDE. Fun fun fun if you are using only vim. Yes, i've done java on the command line, no it was for tweaking things.

----
Give me strength for today.. I will not talk it away..
Just for a moment.. It will burn through the clouds.. and shine down on me.

I have discussed the future of Perl with managers from companies that currently use it and find that they worry about the future of Perl. One company I spoke with here in San Francisco is rewriting their core application in Java.

It might be the right decision for people to convert their Perl application to other languages. For example,

• It was the wrong decision in the first place, they picked Perl to develop things that Perl cannot do very well.
• It was the right decision, but no longer is. Some of the features that were once unique in Perl and defined Perl is no longer unique today. For example, Java picked up regexp support. Java's regexp might not be as good as perl's, but one probably still picks Java's regexp, if most of the other parts of the application are in Java, and Java's regexp is more than enough for them.

Will I continue to do things in Perl? I will if it fits. Well I do things in other languages? I will if they fit. The bottom line is to do the right thing with the right tool.

More tools. Automatic version control. Syntax checks. Branch management without command line hacking. Automatic test generation. Yes, please! This though:

Perl is in danger of becoming a fading language--new programmers are learning Java and Python in college, and companies like Google hardly use Perl at all. If you are afraid that Perl may be in danger of becoming irrelevant for medium-to-large projects, then read on.

Did programmers ever learn Perl formally in school? Almost every Perl hacker I've worked with and know personally is self-taught regardless of whether their background was BSCS or MFA.

And the intro amounts to, "Are you scared? Then I've already got you, so read on; otherwise, uh, there's nothing to see here." The tabloids and their televised kin are wrecking style.

These were more fun articles today: Perl and PHP Mashup and Search Source Code from Books

I found that, past the "scary" introduction, the article was a pretty interesting review of how IDEs can be more powerful than the last time I really used one years ago. I'm still not sure if I'd feel comfortable letting the IDE write the subroutines for me, though. :-)

This article seems to suggest that Perl will stand or fall based on whether it has a nice IDE. Personally, I think its future will depend on its usefulness, not any IDE's that may be written for it. I've used a couple of IDE's for Perl (PerlIDE and Komodo Personal), and they did nothing to help me program better. They were nice, and the access to some of the documentation was marginally better, but really it made almost no difference.

Perl is likely to do just fine, with or without an IDE, as long as it remains useful. I cannot imagine it becoming obsolete any time soon, unless someone comes up with a killer language that's a whole lot friendlier than Java (for example).

I've used a couple of IDE's for Perl (PerlIDE and Komodo Personal), and they did nothing to help me program better. They were nice, and the access to some of the documentation was marginally better, but really it made almost no difference.

And this was the point of the article :-) Perl IDEs are not as useful as those in other languages. See my brief rant for an example of the time you could be saving.

I cannot imagine it becoming obsolete any time soon, unless someone comes up with a killer language that's a whole lot friendlier than Java

That'll be Ruby and Perl 6 :-)

spiritway++, but

>They were nice, and the access to some of the documentation was marginally better,
>but really it made almost no difference.

that only tells me that the IDE's are not very evolved

about IDEs and co-workers:
my experience with co-workers that use IDEs like Eclipse, for example, can be illustrated with some typical examples:

they tell me, "hey, this IDE can do X", I yawn "sure, my vim macro can do this, too."
or "hey, this IDE can do that" - me: "nice idea, i'm going to write a vim macro for that."
"look, this IDE can do Y!" - .oO( what do i need Y for, when vim can do X? )
"look what eclipse can do" - i look, they click, eclipse freezes. *shrug* when i go back to my desk then usually i hear "now it works again!". (i have been suspected to have bad influence on computers running eclipse, because as soon as i stand in front of the screen, the program freezes)

just my 2 cents.