Re^2: Site facelift?

[locust]

You're name says it all.

Anyhow, chief, I was a software engineer about 10 years ago, working with Perl when Php was in it's infancy. Now I live in a "tech" city, and am pretty hard-pressed to find anything where Perl is the primary language used for development. Most of it are legacy systems.

The bulk of employers want php right now..at least in my market. I love Perl and would like to see more jobs available in my market.

So, yeah, I am right. Image is a lot of things in this world. I don't like that, but it's true. So, don't shoot the messenger.

Also, I don't know what the ratio of perl programmers to perlmonk users actually is, but this domain has been around for at least 10 years or so. It's referenced all over the place, and is on the 1st page of a Google search for 'perl', so I don't know what the heck you're talking about.

This site, in part, represents the perl community, just by association.

Like if I queried 'ahole' on Google, and your face came up, then, even though you're not an ahole, everyone would probably think you were. Get it?

[Anonymous Monk]

Your argument seems reasonable, And I completely agree with you on that Perl not being used for new projects part. I have noticed that too.

For Perl to not go down the awk way, it must be used for more than throw away scripting. And most importantly in new projects. From what I've seen and heard across the industry, the mood is use Perl if and only if there is no way out and never for a new project. If new projects don't get written then students and newbies feel no need to learn it and thats how slowly things become irrelevant.

Perception management is important, some things get sold just by word of mouth of advertising. A lot of it is due to buzz. Frequent mention of Django and Ruby on rails on forums like reddit/HN/Stackoverflow is more than sufficient to convince clueless programmers that Ruby and Python are good even if they are not. They just go by the advertising and when they visit their websites, shiny stuff and beautiful GUI's only strengthen their beliefs.

The issue is Perl doesn't even get a mention these days, thats how bad things are at the moment.

[Your Mother]

This is a tired and bottomless topic and I'm an inveterate Perl hacker but just to clarify, Ruby and Python are good.

[Anonymous Monk]

The point is deliberate refusal to adopt to a acknowledged trend thats going around currently. And Perl folks seem to do it because of the Not Invented here Syndrome.

What benefit is there in not recognizing the importance of a good looking site? If only content was important we would all be making phone calls and drawing money out of ATMs through command lines. But things don't work that way in the world, Unfortunately. Perception drives most of our choices.

[JavaFan]

You're name says it all.

You don't know fuck about my name, grasshopper.

Anyhow, chief, I was a software engineer about 10 years ago, working with Perl when Php was in it's infancy. Now I live in a "tech" city, and am pretty hard-pressed to find anything where Perl is the primary language used for development. Most of it are legacy systems.

The bulk of employers want php right now..at least in my market. I love Perl and would like to see more jobs available in my market.

So, yeah, I am right. Image is a lot of things in this world. I don't like that, but it's true. So, don't shoot the messenger.

And your point is? I did not make any statement on whether Perl is "dying" or "thriving", or what language is favourite with the "bulk of employers".

What I'm saying that whether Perl is dead by Christmas or the one true language doesn't depend on whether this site looks like someones wrong memories of the web of 1995.

Or do you think the bulk of employers, when deciding between PHP or Perl make the decision for PHP after visiting Perlmonks and think "Nah, this looks like what I remember of 1995", let's go for PHP?

Also, I don't know what the ratio of perl programmers to perlmonk users actually is, but this domain has been around for at least 10 years or so. It's referenced all over the place, and is on the 1st page of a Google search for 'perl', so I don't know what the heck you're talking about.

Hmmm, I said less than 5% of the Perl programmers have ever visited Perlmonks. You, who has been, according to your profile, using Perl professionally for several years, has only signed up 5 days ago. Not exactly figures that really disprove my statement.

This site, in part, represents the perl community, just by association.

So what? According to your earlier statement, it's employers deciding on PHP now. I doubt such employers are part of the Perl community.

Do not overestimate "the community" (which in itself is a very vague term), which is just a subset of the pool of Perl programmers.