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++. I don't agree with everything you have said, but thanks for saying it. I think there are several explanations for the reducing number of posts:

  • As tonto said in Re: Terminal decline?, a lot of questions have been answered. Certainly the overwhelming majority of mine have. When I wrote RFC Tutorial - Deleting Excel Rows, Columns and Sheets, I think questions on that subject were coming up about once a month. I haven't seen any recently. I don't think that's solely down to me writing one node, but still...
  • We are getting less spam. I think it was about 5 years ago that we were getting a dozen a day. I can live without it. Update: the stuff I remember seems to be Aug-Nov 2011, so 3.5-4 years ago, but of course it's not the only spam peak. I slouch corrected. /update
  • We are getting fewer trolls. I can live without them, too.
  • Polls are getting poorer (all the best ones have been done) and, as a result, there are fewer replies. I find most polls fun, but I can live without them, too.
  • There is more competition from other languages than there was 10-15 years ago. This I like. Every language has its good & bad points and I would rather see code written in the best language for the purpose. If that means that less rubbish is being written in Perl, I can live with that.
  • Stack overflow. In consequence of my previous point, programmers have to know more languages (although, in my limited experience, there are a lot of Java programmers who don't agree, at least yet). It seems to me that there is an increasing number of posts here that are flagged as cross-posted on SO. This I understand. If a programmer with a good reputation on other languages via SO is posting his first Perl question, he's more likely to do it where he's known than to set up a new account here for what might be one question only. I'd rather have all things Perlish under one roof, but I don't see any realistic prospect.
  • I disagree strongly with you that PM is deteriorating. I don't think that the quantity of recent posts is the only criterion or even a major criterion. I find the quality of SOPW posts that appear now far higher than when I first joined. Yes, there are still some shockers, but that's unavoidable. Maybe that's down to the SO effect - more of the shockers appear there and only the really interesting questions make it here. If so, I can live with that. But maybe I'm being smug.

    Where I think more can and should be done is in talking outside the echo chamber. VirtualSue has been organising hack days at London Hackspace. This has drawn in one or two members of the space, who may realise that there's more to Perl than line noise. Similarly, the University of Westminster is very keen that the London Perl Workshop contain things for absolute beginners so that some of their students can come with no need for prior knowledge. Liz and Wendy have been very active in keeping a Perl presence at FOSDEM. In "Beginning Perl", Ovid advises students to create an account here. This is the sort of thing we need. If we want Perl questions asked and answered here, we need to tell all these people about this site. Otherwise, they are likely to go to SO, and I for one won't blame them.

    Regards,

    John Davies


    In reply to Re: Terminal decline? by davies
    in thread Terminal decline? by BrowserUk

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