in reply to Modern Perl and the Future of Perl

Reading the replies of the other monks, I see that they've thought something similar to what I thought (but they've said it better). My third edition Camel Book says "July 2000" inside the cover, and it's still the first thing I'd recommend to someone who wants to know Perl.

So: update the bible. Write a new one, maybe. This seems obvious to the point that it leads me to a question.

Is this answer not obvious to chromatic? If not, why not? Being a published author (I have Perl Hacks on my bookshelf too), perhaps chromatic knows something about the limits of this solution that the rest of us monks do not. Would it be out of date again when it's done? Do the people with the Right Stuff to do the work have better things to do?

The state of Perl documentation reminds me of something someone else said a long time ago in a forum far far away. Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish, sure. Give a man a book about the ecological systems of rivers, lakes, oceans, and other bodies of water, and he will starve to death before he figures out how to fish.

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Re^2: Modern Perl and the Future of Perl
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Dec 20, 2007 at 20:53 UTC
    Do the people with the Right Stuff to do the work have better things to do?

    Larry will speak for himself if necessary, but I have the strong impression that he prefers describing Perl as it is and leaving plenty of room for other people to build nice things with it and share how to build nice things with it.

    Besides that, his brain is full of Perl 6 these days, so if there's a new Camel, I expect to see that instead of a Perl 5.10 or 5.12 version.

[reply]

      I prefer that Larry keep his attention on Perl 6, but it would be so nice to see an updated Camel Book. Maybe other people could take up the burden of writing and he could have a more supervisory role. I don't know, but folks do need to be aware that Perl's still alive and kicking hard. I know that people whose experience is limited to "I wrote a bunch of Perl scripts" 5-10 years ago are consistently amazed at what can be thrown together with a few CPAN modules.

[reply]

      Besides that, his brain is full of Perl 6 these days, so if there's a new Camel, I expect to see that instead of a Perl 5.10 or 5.12 version.

      But Larry is not the only author of the Camel, and I would hope that Randal is whispering in Tim O'Reilly's ear about how perl 5.10 deserves a new book all on it's own.

      Though if the idea is that we need to promote a new, updated, style of perl programming, obviously that's what "Perl Best Practices" is about.

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