Are Perl programmers just easier to deal with?

[CloneArmyCommander]

I know that the mention of "M$" brings certain parts of the perl community to curse the day the corporation came into existance, but I had an interesting experience that I found slightly amusing.

Recently I had a problem with my Hotmail account. I tried, for a change, sending a message to tech support, thought I thought it would be useless. Strangely, they fixed my problem right away (my account would not stay connected to the server to send mail), while most of us are still waiting for replies from tech support for a problem that we had with Windows 3.1 (some of you are familiar with the lovely problem that we have with the internal clock reaching an "end").

This made me wonder if this was a one time thing, or should I start investegating. One solution is to sortof connect the dots. Hotmail. . . online mail account. . . judging by the URL once logged in, CGI. . . what is the language everyone's favorite language for using CGI? Perl :)! I realize that you can use other languages, such as C, but something tells me it is perl.

So, where am I going with this? I am glad you asked me before you downvote me, hahaha :).

Have you found Perl programmers to be more cooperative? Every language's following seems to have it's own distict personality, and Perl's seems to be that of a more helpful nature. My experience just seems to make me think :).

[samizdat]

As has been stated, M$ has done their damnedest to eradicate efficiency from Hotmail, but I wouldn't be surprised if parts of it are still working using legacy code. It is more likely that the URLs are merely maintained by inertia. Certainly the coders (of whatever stripe) had to really apply themselves to make Doze work well enough not to cause Hotmail to commit suicide!

I do think there are several reasons I've found for Perl coders being more helpful (to other perl coders, at least):

1. It's easier to get more done. This leads to:
   • more pride and rewards
   • quicker answers
   • more time to chat
2. more community resources like PM
3. a wide range of app areas, leading to continuing interest

With Perl, a little bit of code can get a lot done. Contrast that with assembler or C, where it takes ages to develop low -level routines, and where programmers have to keep their heads down just to get code that does ANYTHING, let alone lots of spectacular thingies.

My impression of Java (at this point in the game) is similar in that there's a lot of verbiage that has to be included before real work gets done. This is changing as more objects and classes (beans, etc.) are developed and thrown out for use. I suspect that Java's use mostly as a corporate and teaching tool will color its culture, just as Perl's culture is colorful and complex because its uses and users are colorful and complex.

[CloneArmyCommander]

Bingo :)! This is mostly what I was looking for when I wrote my Medition. I guess it was just a bad choice in getting started, it was just that was what was in my mind at the time, and just wanted to get everyone in the moment that I was in. Apologies for the bad lead in.

Mostly, what I was noticing is trying to get help from someone who works with a compiled language, while possible, just seems much more difficult. You have to either wait until the next version comes out instead of asking for a quick fix patch that can just be kluged in and have a nice working product.

Trying to get help from users of interpreted langues, seems to be quite the opposite. I can ask a question here, and I have to finally decide to say "that's enough" becuase I can get so many responses that I nearly drown in them. I figure that what it all boils down to is, seems like a better tech support option, we seem to have enough time to support our projects without having people wait for the next version (unless we choose to do business that way :), and in addition help others get their projects done.

Now, please do not misunderstand me, I am not going down the road of "which languag is better?" because I see it as a dead end. Although, it is nice to stir things up around the monastary, and that seems the best way to do it, hahahaha ;).

[samizdat]

Well, to my mind, there's another distinction. It's long been a joke that (to use Sym@ntec & M$ as an example I remember well) "It's a Microsoft bug" and "It's an integration problem" degenerate into "We'll fix it in 5.0" and {ignore him}.

Contrast that with the open source world, where you get five good user-generated suggestions in five minutes, developer queries overnght, and patches the next morning. I'm not saying it's always this way -- see node embperl and Apache::Session::Memcached which has also been posted on the memcached and Embperl lists without any real suggestions -- but I have almost universally been impressed by the interactive and supportive nature of open source developers.

Part of the problem is that you're never dealing directly with coders or even architects in a commercial company. At worst, you're dealing with Indian "English", at best, you get a script kiddie in a phone farm. I'm all for business and capitalism -- I run a profitable biz myself as well as working -- but corporate bean-smashers ruin the game when a biz "grows up". Sym@ntec is a perfect example of how good products have been placed in a rotten corporate context. Peter Norton created a very useful tool suite, and Act! really is (was!) a well-done contact manager, but Symn@ntec's corporate choices would make a dog howl.

[Anonymous Monk]

Even if hotmail uses Perl, what makes you think Hotmail uses Perl programmers for techsupport?

Can't say that I've noticed Perl programmers are more or less helpful/friendly than programmers using other languages. I do notice that certain areas of the Perl community (i.e. Perlmonks) have the tendency to find themselves, the language and everything related to it better than something else.

Kind of like teenagers with their favourite pop artists. ;-)

[johndageek]

2 cents

People who gather in groups based upon common interest are generally friendly, cooperative and helpful. At least in regards to the subject at hand.

Another generalization: People who are in a group do not want to be alone, hence some level of interest in interpersonal communication.

[perrin]

Sorry, but there's just no way hotmail is written in perl. They host it on MS servers now, not BSD. I'm sure they just preserve the URLs for the sake of bookmarks. You can't assume anything based on URLs.

[hardburn]

Hardly. Perl runs on MS servers. You can even hear some praise for Perl coming from some sections of Microsoft (much of the .NET CLR was tested using a Perl framework, IIRC). As for bookmarking, much of this is internal URLs that change whenever Hotmail bleeding well feel like it.

But I still doubt it's written in Perl.

[perrin]

I know Perl runs on Windows, and have even used it there some, but you don't seriously think that a MS development team would choose to use Perl instead of their in-house tools for a public service like Hotmail, do you? They certainly wouldn't run CGI for a site with that much traffic, which was the thing in the URLs that made the OP think it was perl.

[brian_d_foy]

I don't think Perl programmers are easier to deal with, but I don't think they are harder to deal with either.

I actually find that people who deal with many languages are easier to deal with because they have less religious zealotry. I've had a particular experience this week was just painful because the other side assumed that I wouldn't want to use any non-free or closed source stuff, when in reality I don't really care (as I type this on my Mac, and have Photoshop and InDesign fired up).

I find the best customer service to be from internal people (not outsourced call centers) who are well taken care of by their employers, regardless of what computer or operating system they have in front of them. I know plenty of great and wonderful people using Windows, C++, Java, or whatever we sometimes joke about, and I think those people would have the same great attitude even if they used something else.

On the other hand, a lot of people are jerks no matter what they use. ;)

[bluto]

Have you found Perl programmers to be more cooperative? Every language's following seems to have it's own distict personality, and Perl's seems to be that of a more helpful nature.

I take it you've never read comp.lang.perl.misc? :-)

While a language/background probably makes a difference, I think it depends more on how well a group of people manages bad behavior within the group. Perlmonks has its own way of doing this which seems to work with some success. Where I work I've seen people with thick skins that downplay whining do a lot to keep morale up, and affect others in the group to do the same. Of course one or two people, or bad management, can make a big difference in the other direction too. Then there are tech support folks that will behave well even two feet from the abyss (i.e. M$).