in reply to Re: Summing up recent ideas into a concept: Code vs. Prose
in thread Summing up recent ideas into a concept: Code vs. Prose

I would guestimate that somewhere between 70-90% of it's use is for CGI scripting,
Most of us that have to make a living providing support services to the Perl community at large put that more down at the 40% mark.

It just seems higher because CGI is much more complex than it first appears, and is usually undertaken by people who are light-duty or non- programmers, and therefore show up more in forums trying to get help.

But many people I know have been hacking Perl heavily for years and have never even put up their first CGI program.

Of course, "how do I access a DB?" is a question that is valid whether or not you're in a CGI space, so maybe you've miscategorized some questions. {shrug}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

  • Comment on Percent of Perl used for CGI - lower than that

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Re: Percent of Perl used for CGI - lower than that
by Masem (Monsignor) on Apr 30, 2001 at 18:50 UTC
    I'll take your word on it with the years of experience that you've had in perl'ing. But I think the statement that I was trying to make, that most of the questions that we are asked in SoPW/Q&A, are "uninteresting" or "unchallenging" as they seem to represent uses of perl that a majority of perl programmers are involved, and thus already should have a good base of knowledge to go on (eg FAQs, USENET, PM archives). Looking at the current front page of SoPW, there's only 1 out of 10 questions that I would consider to be 'challenging' to find the answer for, in that I would expect to learn something new when helping this user out; the rest I can answer with basic knowledge.

    And that is the atrophy that the original thread here to aiming at; there's too many 'uninteresting' yet still useful questions being asked that doesn't help those on the high end of the XP scale. I have no problem answering the uninteresting questions, as long as I have the oppurtunity to learn from others on more advanced questions, and while I still find that this is happening for me, I can see how others a bit more advanced in perl would find the lack of new knowledge deterimental to the PM experience. Which is why I think having Articles aimed beyond the beginning user would be a perfect addition to beat the PM atrophy.

    Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
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