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For a while now I have had an interesting debate going with a friend of mine at work about the social culture
surrounding Perl. It is his belief that like many groups of people interested in similiar endeavors the Perl
community consists of all types of different folks. I do not dispute that this is true although I do disagree
to a certain extent. Perl after all is open source and to me that means not exactly mainstream. I have always
considered the Unix/Linux world to be the "underground" or "punk rock" of the computing world in a sense that
most folks are hammering away on their Windoze machines with little or no idea that something way better and
free is available. I also feel that there are many like interests among us, good beer, mountain biking,
snowboarding, gaming, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek etc... My friend maintains that it is all about the code
and this could be one of the reasons that he is a way better coder than I, however I feel that the social
aspects of the Perl Culture are also very important and helps further everyones coding endeavors all the way
from the newest newbie to Merlyn himself. lemme know what you think - cheers |
(zdog) Re: Perl as Culture........
by zdog (Priest) on May 31, 2001 at 22:56 UTC
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When you mention the term social, I think of the way people interact and live together. With that in mind, I have a couple of thoughts:
The Perl community is very important in development of perl. There are many individuals that make bug fixes to the Perl code, or develop modules for CPAN. Without a group of people beyond the masters, as you mentioned, Perl would not be as good and complete as it is.
Secondly, you mentioned the furthering of everyones coding endeavors which goes along with what I think the ultimate purpose of PerlMonks is. The PM community allows people to learn Perl and improve their skills like few other places. The fact that this is a social environment where people discuss Perl and support eachother greatly contributes to the expansion of the greater Perl community.
So ultimately, I feel that what you are saying has merit. I just pointed out a couple of examples, but I sure there are several, if not many, other examples that can go along with that.
Zenon Zabinski | zdog | zdog7@hotmail.com
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Re: Perl as Culture........
by bikeNomad (Priest) on May 31, 2001 at 23:03 UTC
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This is just anecdotal:
The first Geek Cruise was the Perl Whirl. This was followed by (among others) a Java one, a Database one, and an XML one.
According to at least one person I know that was on the Perl one and the Java one, the Perl crowd was much more fun and interesting.
My own experience on the Perl Whirl was that the crowd was, indeed, pretty diverse. But the interests you list are probably geek interests (or interests of a particular age group) in general.
If you look at "good beer" for instance, you'll find that many homebrewers and beer judges are computer programmers of one sort or another.
What am I trying to say? I guess just this: since the nature of the Perl jobs tends to be somewhat different from that of the classic "IT" programmer job, Perl will attract somewhat different people. But programmers in general are a distinct group in terms of tastes, hobbies, etc. | [reply] |
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As the "Geek Cruiser Emeritus", having been on all three cruises (and soon
to be a fourth two weeks from now), I can support that.
The Perl crowd was very fun, connected, and yet diverse.
The Java crowd was very sedate, disconnected, and yet amazingly "all out of one mold".
The XML crowd was also sedate, almost polarized (dataheads, webheads, docheads),
and yet young-ish since the field is new.
I'd definitely go on another Perl cruise. The other ones I'm starting to think will simply be a great place for me to get away from The Monestary for a week. {grin}
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
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Re: Perl as Culture........
by petdance (Parson) on Jun 01, 2001 at 00:51 UTC
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Brian: "I'm in the Perl club too..."
Bender: "S'cuse me a sec... What are you babbling about?"
Brian: "Well, what I said was, I'm in the math club, the Latin club
and the Perl club..."
Bender: "(to Claire) Do YOU belong to the Perl club?"
Claire: "That's an academic club."
Bender: "So?"
Claire: "So... academic clubs aren't the same as other kinds of clubs."
Bender: "Oh, but to dorks like him, they are.
(To Brian) What do you guys do in your club?"
Brian: "In Perl, um, we talk about Perl, about properties of Perl..."
Bender: "So it's sorta social...demented and sad, but social."
Brian: "Yeah, well, I guess you could
consider it a social situation. I
mean there are other programmers in my
club and uh, at the end of the year
we have, um, you know, a big
banquet, at the, uh, at the Hilton."
xoxo,
Andy
%_=split/;/,".;;n;u;e;ot;t;her;c; ". # Andy Lester
'Perl ;@; a;a;j;m;er;y;t;p;n;d;s;o;'. # http://petdance.com
"hack";print map delete$_{$_},split//,q< andy@petdance.com >
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Re: Perl as Culture........
by cacharbe (Curate) on May 31, 2001 at 23:14 UTC
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*scratches head*
I'm looking through this and I find some logical flaws in your arguments, which I can prove by exception and/or set theory, but instead I'll be short (*maybe*) with this rebuttle.
Yes, perl coders have their own culture, but I think you are trying to be much too specific about an abstract idea.
I hammer away at a windoze machine all day long because that is the standard at the company at which I work. I still use Perl...and C++...and VB and ECMAS scripting langs, as the need arrises. I try to use the best tool for the job.
That being said, it is dangerous to glob $perlcoders strictly based on the list of commonalities you rattled off. Yes, you are going to see a cross section that have similar interests, but that will hold true with any group with an unbounded membership. The one thing that binds us as a group/set is PERL. It's all about the code.
I think that you should look at a more generalized set/group when it comes to the points of interest. Geek, maybe, or male centric with small exception (there are some ladies out there who fit the description), I dunno. But to say that all perl coders share those things..*wince* dangerous assumption. We share Perl, everything else, IMHO, is coincidence.
C-. (*okay, not so short*) | [reply] |
Re: Perl as Culture.
by Vynce (Friar) on Jun 01, 2001 at 12:59 UTC
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good beer, mountain biking, snowboarding, gaming, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek etc...
i can tell you that i do believe there is a perl community, and that it is a lot of why the language is good; but i can also tell you that if you think this list above has anything to do with it, you're smoking the bad crack. a lot of programmers like good beer; then again, a lot of non-programmers like good beer. i hate beer, and love perl. ditto mountain biking and snowboarding. i like gaming, but certainly it is not a prerequisite for writing perl. i like science fiction and fantasy novels, but not all sci-fi fans are hackers.
that said, what does bring us together? what i think we do share is two-fold:
- Programmer-nature: we like to take logical approaches to complex problems, think about things in that particular analytic manner that leads to algorithmic solutions. this leads some of us to laziness, impatience, and|or hubris.
- Artist-nature: i think it is no coincidence that the perl license is called the artistic license. perl moreso than most languages is a medium of expression of art and beauty; golf is an example of that, as are obfuscation and poetry. there is an aesthetic sense to perl. for any given problem, there are solutions which are elegant, and solutions which are not. this is not so much the case in other laguages.
these two things, the perl logic and the perl aesthetic, the perl left brain and the perl right brain, tend to cause certain things in conjunction together -- a love of puns, for instance -- but by no means are all the possible side effects of these two things necessary in each member of the community.
and i think the one single most important thing that makes the perl community the way best programming community is that the community is appreciated, known, and encouraged in a way that it might not have been. it is self-reinforcing. we love the community, so we give to the community, and the community gives to the newbie and to us, and the newbie feels the love of the community and, in turn, loves the community, and so on.
thus, greatness.
.
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Okay - whoa I never said that ALL Perl programmers do those things I said we have SOME of those things in common - I think you would agree that you would have more in common with a Perl programmer than say a salesman on AVERAGE - of course there are no absolutes in the world when it comes to people - I think people are starting to dissect this post a little to much - my take on Perl culture was really just that MY take - perl culture to me is THIS
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Re: Perl as Culture........
by dooberwah (Pilgrim) on Jun 01, 2001 at 00:46 UTC
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From coding in C for a bit before doing Perl I know that the C/C++ community (if you can even call it that) is very different than the Perl community. When I had a question about something in C/C++ I knew that I'd probobly have to find the answer on my own because I couldn't find any nice people to help me. Even on question/answer newsgroups the answers to my questions usually amounted to RTFM, or "you're too stupid to know this so why should we tell you?". With Perl I can hang out in the monastery and ask questions, talk to people, post code and just about everyone I talk to is helpful and nice. Also, Perl programmers tend to freely give away their work which is a very helpful learning resource for newbies like me. With the C/C++ groups/websites I've been a part of people tend to be much more gaurded about letting you look at their source code. (this is more true for Windoze programmers) I think one of the reasons I enjoy programming in Perl so much is that the community is so diverse and neat. Perl wouldn't be nearly as nice if nobody put their modules on CPAN and there weren't helpful sites like our wonderful monastery here. My conclusion: the community makes all the difference in how the language as a whole works.
Anyway, those are just the thoughts of another JAPH-to-be.
-Ben Jacobs (dooberwah)
one thing i can tell you is you got to be free
http://dooberwah.perlmonk.org | [reply] |
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Well, I can say this. Played with Java. Couldn't consider doing anything in it unless it was for money. Same with C, and I've played a lot with C. Delphi and a couple of others as well. Of course, if I were doing it only for money I'd probably be secretive ;) Perl is the first one I've enjoyed coding with for the sake of coding with. It's also the first time I've taken enough interest in a language to push myself to learn more. Including other languages to help me be a better Perl coder. I'm sure not all coders with a little experience feel that way about Perl. But I'm willing to bet its higher than usual. ;) I am a right tool for the right job kind of person, but I really look forward to the jobs where perl is the right tool. Maybe that's the group of programmers you are referring too. It's always enjoyable to answer a question about something you like.
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(jptxs) Re: Perl as Culture........
by jptxs (Curate) on Jun 01, 2001 at 06:29 UTC
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Though I agree with the idea that the culture is as you describe most of the time, I think you'd be more correct if you reversed your statement. The all around, underground geek who's into HGTG, LoTR, ST(NG|DS9|etc), etc, etc also tend to dig Perl. Why? I would say it's b/c Perl is an archetype of the OSS ideals - perlmonks being a huge example of this. If I had to distill what I think is unique to the Perl culture that makes it stand out, I would propose two things.
First is the general agreement of true Perl gurus (not hightening myself to that rank here as I still need to learn this lesson) that it is always best to use the right tool for the job, not just Perl for every job. I think the newbie misconception is best summed up in the Geek Code's statement that "I use Perl for all programs of less than a thousand lines." What if sed was the better choice? I invite anyone to cruise around and find all the nodes where high level monks offer non-perl solutions. The list is long.
Second is the willingness to help the newbie sharpen their skills without retribution. More that one person already noted this, but I find this is unique to Perl and the languages it has inspired. Even Java, born and bred in the afterglow of Perl, does not have this flavor to it.
"A man's maturity -- consists in having found again the
seriousness one had as a child, at play." --Nietzsche
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