Re: Perl "up and coming" programming language of coming year

[Anonymous Monk]

Php is on the rise. Want to know why? Facebook is written in Php and too much Php news is attached with Facebook. So just on the basis of 'He says, she says' many people are jumping onto Php.

This is precisely what happened with Python when Google was blooming. And with Perl during the days of Amazon and Yahoo. All languages have their day in the sun and then new ones come to replace them.

Besides if a language needs real crazy adoption, some one needs to build something cool and which can make money. People will jump on it like mad. Even if language in itself is fit for nothing. 95% of all programmers just want something to get their work done, if that tool is famous and in the news it gets picked up rapidly.

Want Perl to be famous and used widely, Build something cool using it. And also build a business around it. And then see the magic.

[Your Mother]

PHP was on the rise before FB because it's terribly easy to build useful websites with it. It would be good PR to have a big cool app which was very publicly Perl and had easy plugin authoring in Perl.

Perl however was *not* popular because it was used at Amazon and Yahoo. It was used there because it was so useful. It's still used just about everywhere to some degree for the same reason. Most Perl hackers back in the day were surprised to hear where Perl was used. They just liked using it. And the idea of a language being "famous" is kind of stupid. When TMZ starts covering Perl I'm headed for the mountains to start my Luddite days.