Plat_forms. http://www.plat-forms.org/index.htm.

What is it?

Plat_Forms is an international programming contest. It aims at comparing different technological platforms for developing web-based applications: Java EE, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby-on-Rails.

Software development platforms for web applications (such as Java EE, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.) are among the most critical factors of development productivity today. The pros and cons of the various platforms are by-and-large known in principle, but how the pros trade off against the cons in one platform and how that compares to another platform is the topic of quasi-religious wars only, not a subject of objective analysis, as almost no data is available that allows such direct comparison. Plat_Forms is a contest that will change this. It will have top-class (and hence comparable) teams of 3 programmers implement the same specification of a web-based application under the same circumstances and thus generate a basis for objective comparison of the various characteristics that the platforms generate.

Notice anything missing? From the FAQ:

What about Perl?

We have been considering Perl as one of the platforms to be admitted to the contest. So far, we have decided against it because we believe that too few professionals use it professionally for us to hope to get enough requests for admittance for the Perl platform.

If you are a team that would like to participate and would like to use Perl, please contact prechelt@inf.fu-berlin.de (Lutz Prechelt).

Update:

I've heard through the grapevine that Matt Trout wanted to pass along this message (sent along through several perl email lists)

They're having a platform war. We're forever left out of the ruby vs. python games, the "enterprise" people ignore us (though really, I'm not sure I mind that :) but ...

Our community has repeatedly failed to market it's way out of a paper bag, I've even helped contribute to this with my eminently forgettable London Web Frameworks Night talk. But this is about producing working code. *That* we know we can do.

Stand up and be counted. It's gotta be good for a laugh if nothing else.



--chargrill 
s**lil*;  $*=join'',sort split q**;  s;.*;grr; &&s+(.(.)).+$2$1+; $; =
qq-$_-;s,.*,ahc,;$,.=chop for split q,,,reverse;print for($,,$;,$*,$/)

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by fenLisesi (Priest) on Oct 12, 2006 at 12:20 UTC
    Well, I guess the likes of Yahoo! and Amazon do not employ professionals.
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by reneeb (Chaplain) on Oct 12, 2006 at 11:31 UTC
    So, it's up to the Perl community now to get three teams that will use a framework written in Perl. They can submit their work...

    If you know Catalyst and/or Jifty users/developers, tell them about the contest. It would be great if at least three teams would submit any results...
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by shmem (Chancellor) on Oct 12, 2006 at 10:48 UTC
    update: I gladly scratch the following after reading Perl gets to compete after all:

    whoa, what a disparaging statement:

    too few professionals use it professionally

    It's time you get it, folks. Real professionals don't consider using that whacky perl for serious things. You're all a bunch of gamers, kiddies, fools. </sarcasm>

    But! as there has been such a note on the website, it remains to be said that it shows the organizers were in doubt, and imho they should have done a bit more of research about the perl state of web developing up front. And that statement is really easy to be ill-gotten.

    -shmem 

    _($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by zentara (Cardinal) on Oct 12, 2006 at 11:40 UTC
    So far, we have decided against it because we believe that too few professionals use it professionally

    Come on, we all know the real reason..... that Perl would probably win and deflate the corporate-sponsored ego's of the other participants. They can't risk that.

    I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Cogito ergo sum a bum
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by grinder (Bishop) on Oct 12, 2006 at 14:02 UTC

    Don't be too hard on them. After all, look at the URL. index.htm. They're still using MS-DOS :)

    • another intruder with the mooring in the heart of the Perl

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      Oh, it's worse than that.

      <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">

      [download]


      --chargrill 
      s**lil*;  $*=join'',sort split q**;  s;.*;grr; &&s+(.(.)).+$2$1+; $; =
qq-$_-;s,.*,ahc,;$,.=chop for split q,,,reverse;print for($,,$;,$*,$/)

      [download]
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by cog (Parson) on Oct 12, 2006 at 14:46 UTC
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by Khen1950fx (Canon) on Oct 12, 2006 at 20:49 UTC
    Just a little observation: The corporate sponsor for this contest is Zend which pushes its Zend platform in PHP. Now, if I'm developing a platform, then I'd go with the language that provided the greatest number of resources. For instance, I checked the PHP repositories: PEAR has a total of 412 packages in its repository; PECL has 154. CPAN has 10,642. Hmmm... I rest my case.
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Re: Perl doesn't get to compete.
by tinita (Parson) on Oct 14, 2006 at 23:40 UTC
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