in reply to What can bring the excitement back to Perl?

You know what excites me? It's being able to get paid ridiculous amounts of money to do what I love to do while working from home. It's being able to work with some of the smartest people in the world without having to get on a plane. It's the fact that, sometimes, some of these smartest people ask me for advice. It's knowing that my code actually makes a difference vs. just sitting in some server being used by 6 people who couldn't care less. Today, I get to do all that in Perl. If tomorrow I would need to use Brainfuck to get those benefits, I would use Brainfuck.

So, why do all those things come to me when I use Perl? Answer that question and you'll see how exciting Perl has always been and still is.

My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?
  • Comment on Re: What can bring the excitement back to Perl?

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Re^2: What can bring the excitement back to Perl?
by Mutant (Priest) on Mar 25, 2008 at 11:52 UTC

    I don't think the OP was saying he doesn't find Perl exciting. He wants to figure out how Perl can be "sold" as exciting to a wider audience. The biggest problem for Perl in the industry at the moment is a lack of Perl developers. And that seems to be because younger / newer developers aren't picking it up.

    I think the only thing that can really get Perl back to where it once was, in terms of "buzz", is Perl 6.

[reply]
      *sighs* Why on earth do we want to have our name everywhere? Where is the cachet in that? Perl gets the job done, period.

      And, frankly, I cannot think of a time where Perl was ever buzzed about. Ever. Not even the halcyon dotcom days. It just never happened.

      My criteria for good software:
      1. Does it work?
      2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?
[reply]

        Well, it's nice to have new developers coming through and joining the ranks. The main issue for Perl as far as the industry is concerned is that it's damn hard to find good developers (yes, it's hard to find good developers for any language, but Perl appears to be even harder).

        Some people say "well, hire non-Perl devs and train them up", but that's really the problem. Because Perl doesn't seem exciting to a lot of people outside the community, the good non-Perl devs don't *want* to learn Perl. And if they're good devs, they can pick and choose their roles.

        So companies are starting to phase out Perl because they just can't find developers. (The other usual Perl FUD most likely adds fuel to the fire).

[reply]

        Because sometimes the decision regarding the language in which to implement something is done by people who only know about the things whose names are everywhere.

        Jenda
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