in reply to Is Perl on the Raspberry Pi worth it?

Is the book selling? That is some indicator of interest or otherwise.

I have a (very) little interaction with RP, mostly cleaning up someone else's code which is almost always written in Python. In some cases it clean up the Python. In one case it was rewrite it in C++. In most cases Perl would be a more attractive option if I thought the people who own the gear would wear it, but I doubt they would. Each of these systems is essentially one off (an "edge of space" balloon project and a couple of remote data collection systems) so would be great candidates for Perl, if I could get buy in. The balloon project involved a bunch of mid level school students who came with the usual Python indoctrination to the extent that they were involved in the coding at all. The data collection systems were provided by the Japanese researchers with code written by students, collaborators or maybe a hired "processional". In any case none of it was pleasant to look at!

So yes, Perl on the Pi is worth it, if I could just find an opportunity to use it!

Optimising for fewest key strokes only makes sense transmitting to Pluto or beyond
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Re^2: Is Perl on the Raspberry Pi worth it?
by stevieb (Canon) on Jun 22, 2019 at 19:06 UTC

    The book is selling, slowly. It's my first experience with being a published author, so whether sales are good for the target audience is something I don't have the experience to put into any form of statistics. That said, Timm and I have been approached by another distributor, and we're in discussions on licensing them the book, with the prospect of adding to it, or writing another one.

    If you do run into a situation where you find an opportunity to use Perl on the Pi, please, feel free to reach out to me directly (my email is on my CPAN page), or just throw it out here on PM. I'm known to be here from time-to-time ;)

      FWIW, a friend of mine is an author with 20 published books to his name, one became a Hollywood theatrical release, and he’s living on close to nothing. Even successful authors, musicians, artists often make something near or barely better than minimum wage when you figure in their time and materials; $100K for a book seems awesome until you consider it may have taken four years to write. When I was busy being a starving artist chump back in the day I calculated my hourly wages after all expenses at the end of the business run at about 15¢/hour. :P

      Probably damning to say it but I became a Perl hacker because I was tired of being straight-up poor and it felt more like creative writing to me than real work.

        I'm absolutely not interested in becoming an author or artist full-time, just so that's clear.

        I did the book because Timm had asked me to assist, considering he was using my software primarily to put it together (it was actually 1nickt that mentioned the prospect to me, if I'm not mistaken in my recollection). I'm also a hip-hop/rap lyricist/mixer and producer, but only do that for some very close friends back home in Toronto while I'm there visiting family. Neither of these provide even a modicum of steady income.

        I'd *love* to have a job programming Perl for a living. Finding something in this realm here in Canada is a major uphill battle, one that I've fought for years to achieve :)