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Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?

by OfficeLinebacker (Chaplain)
on Jul 05, 2013 at 18:36 UTC ( [id://1042759]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Greetings, esteemed monks!

I joined this site in 2006 and have been very on-and-off with my activity since. It seems to me that the site is less active now than six years ago. Is this true? Are there stats as far as posts/quality of posts over time? What other sites are our "competitors?" (Stackoverflow is certainly one)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?
by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Jul 05, 2013 at 20:32 UTC
      Yep. It seems that the average votes per node is going down year by year. The earlier you got into the XP game, the higher your votes per post. XP awards are tied to an average of all posts though, the $NORM value. Today it is 4.8, I remember it being in the mid 5s a year ago.
Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago? (pancakes)
by Anonymous Monk on Jul 06, 2013 at 02:37 UTC
Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?
by 5mi11er (Deacon) on Jul 05, 2013 at 19:03 UTC
    I would guess, being "back" over the past few months, and my memories from the 2004-6 era, that the amount of quality discussions seems to be diminished, and there seems to be fewer SOPW questions than I remember before. Thankfully many of the extraordinarily talented people that make this site great are still around.

    I think fewer SOPW questions is an inevitable result of Perl not being the cool kid on the block anymore.

    Regardless of that status, Perl is mature and stable and definitely has it's place amongst the giants like Cobol, Fortran, C, and the more recent additions of Java, Python, etc. So, I expect that Perl will be with us for a very long time to come as it's use tapers off in a long slow decline.

    -Scott

      You bring up an interesting point, which is the question of relative traffic vs absolute traffic.

      We can easily answer the question of absolute traffic.

      However, let's say traffic is down. Part of that, as you say, may be because of a lapse in popularity of Perl.

      However, what part of this is due to competition for what Perl related traffic there still is, like with StackOverflow, etc

      Again, this is anecdotal, but I feel like before, when I googled perl problems, the majority of the results were on PM. These days, I believe a slim majority of the results now come from Stackoverflow.

        Anecdotally, I've found that StackOverflow answers are no where near the quality I'm looking for, so I tend to seek out perl monks answers from my google searches, or just come straight here and do some super searches.

        -Scott

        Curious, I supposed at least part of that be that Stackexchange either didn't exist yet, or had much fewer posts?

      as it's use tapers off in a long slow decline
      What information makes you think Perl is in decline? I find its community vibrant as ever and Perl's use expanding as I find more and more places I can put it to good use

      CountZero

      A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

      My blog: Imperial Deltronics
Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?
by LanX (Saint) on Jul 05, 2013 at 19:55 UTC
    > have been very on-and-off with my activity since.

    Indeed!

    Your posting statistic seem to indicate that you have been away for very long periods and are only coming back for very small phases and basically motivated to ask questions.

    I'm surprised that you are using one of these come-back windows to comment on two "PM Discussions" and start two more new threads in this category just within 2 hours ... ;-)

    Cheers Rolf

    ( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

    update

    added emoticon

Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?
by Preceptor (Deacon) on Jul 08, 2013 at 19:05 UTC

    Having taken a long break, where I was 'PerlMonks free' because I wasn't doing much Perlish, I have to say - I don't think it is less active.

    Indeed, I think perhaps the opposite - there seems to be a fairly steady stream of things to read and respond to.

    But in no small part, the reason I came back, is because I was looking up something to do with Perl, and found that Perlmonks had a variety of very useful and valid conversations on the subject. I must confess, I was a little surprised to find it healthy and well, but so it is. And I'm very pleased. There are perhaps a few fewer meditations and the like than there were. But then, perhaps Perl is getting more mature and stable. Perhaps 'elegant' code is getting better understood.

Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?
by LanX (Saint) on Jul 05, 2013 at 19:09 UTC
    Interesting question ... come back in 6 years and I'll tell you! ;-)

    Cheers Rolf

    ( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

    update

    added emoticon

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