Excellent reflections! Thanks for sparking new ideas in my wicked brain.
I think that there is no doubt that Perl, Haskell and other great languages (especially the 'free' ones) will (or should I say 'should') never actually die, just by applying the natural selection principle of adaptability.
But in this day and age we have an external factor, called marketing, that acts like a great meteorite, and in an instant, can kill off perfectly adapted, diverse and balanced species set, leading eventually to the survival of not so positive and destructive creatures, like for example , man, who obviously wants to be the _olny_ species left on the planet.
What I am trying to say is that if dinosaurs had used marketing, many of the well adapted ones would probably be around today serving as much needed predators to man, and extending the life of our beloved spaceship.
So even though Perl is not a dinosaur (although many may argue that it is) and Java is not nearly as destructive as man, I think we definitively need more marketing.
We need brochures, white papers and shut-your-mouth success stories that we can take to meetings and kill the argument before the language flame even starts. We also need stories where Java has failed miserably, and better yet if it has been replaced or 'enhanced' by the use of Perl, or any of the other great 'free' languages. We need for the companies thay use Perl to come forward and say: "Yes, I use Perl and I'm proud!".
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The preceding posts attacks the very nature of man -- the use of his mind (reason) to transform nature to his own needs. I am glad to be a man. It is good for man to transform nature to meet his needs (example).
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My post was just a joke, with some pun intended, but nothing of seriousness; I think that should be obvious for the normal PM reader. As I read and re-read your post, it makes me wonder if it's also a joke, or: are you being serious?
Cultural diversity is not only humanity’s hallmark of progress, but an insurance policy against extinction as a species. Diversity gives not only cultural and economic riches derived from different perspectives on natural resources and what it means to be human, but options to problem solving that are stifled in a homogenized society. When such a society is organized around economic goals that are measured by profit margins for private gain by powerful elites, where the demands of those who bear cash as the ticket of admission to the marketplace rule, rather than the needs of people, then those who are deprived – and those who have never been part of such a global economy – must necessarily suffer. The genocide of tribal peoples, therefore, is symptomatic of a deep malaise in the world’s metropolises. Indigenous peoples will suffer the most, but humanity as a whole will suffer the loss of some of its memory, not only of a unique knowledge of the natural world, but of its ability to cope with the future in various, diverse ways.
THY WILL BE DONE, The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett
Harper Collins, 1995, p. 685
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