The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org • Hacker News Board

Re: The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org

#121

Post by abritinthebay » Wed, May 23, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #84

abritinthebay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's probably only true for software that primarily serves large users of OSS. Like developer communities. It's very much not the case with consumer software.

> I think it's probably only true for software that primarily serves large users of OSS. I think I understand what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure that description makes any sense. Prior to the popular OSS version being created, in most cases an OSS version didn't exist so there couldn't be a large set of users of OSS. Apache has been run on windows for decades (or very close to it) now. Same with Sendmail, an…

> it's probably true for software that has a more technical audience

Not just technical - technical and already use OSS. But yes, this is broadly my point. However...

> That is, I think your cause and effect was backwards, as those people are now users of OSS because there's good, solid OSS software that makes sense for them to choose

While this is partially true (obviously it has to exist to be used), I'm talking about the original proposition: that OSS always wins.

That's plainly not true when you're dealing with users who don't generally have exposure to OSS. Even polished OSS that serves these audiences (LibreOffice, etc) perform extremely poorly.

I think you get my point in the first part but you're narrowing your focus to why it works on that audience - when my point is that that technical audience isn't the general audience.

Re: The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org

#122

Post by samngms » Thu, May 24, 2018, 12:11 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #8

Now this is you how EOL a beloved product. By working with an OSS replacement such that the transition is transparent. Super thanks to the team for the CPAN search (it was a lifesaver many times for me in the past!) as well as for their awesome transition plan.

I used to be a Perl developer about 15 years ago. I no longer write Perl. Thank you CPAN search team.

Re: The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org

#123

Post by gitgacutils » Thu, May 24, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

hpcjoe wrote: post #73

gitgacutils wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely an end of an era. Some other telling factors. The level of activity/projects in perl compared to python. http://twimgs.com/ddj/images/article/2014/0114/Tiobe1.gif http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/the-rise-and-fall-of-languages-in... Or the fact that perl isn't even relevant enough to be part of a comparison of major script-like languages. https://stackoverflow.blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/growth... But t…

Amazing how, a decade or more after the python-perl skirmishes, some still ... still ... cannot give up their attacks on perl, using the mask of accounts created in the last day. Perl is still alive, well, and growing. It's not the currently cool language d'jour like qw(Scala go F# rust ...). But people are shipping code with it, using it successfully for what it does best. Haters gonna hate, and one should generally…

> Amazing how, a decade or more after the python-perl skirmishes, some still ... still ... cannot give up their attacks on perl, using the mask of accounts created in the last day.

I'm a fan of perl. I'm old school. I like C, perl, etc. I wasn't attacking perl. Just pointing out REALITY.

> Haters gonna hate, and one should generally avoid feeding the several hour old trolls. Their trolling notwithstanding, rumors of perl's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

I'm a troll because I pointed out facts?

Listen, nobody wants perl to succeed more than me. Stop calling people trolls just because you are upset about what has happened to perl.

Re: The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org

#124

Post by kbenson » Thu, May 24, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

gitgacutils wrote: post #123

hpcjoe wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how, a decade or more after the python-perl skirmishes, some still ... still ... cannot give up their attacks on perl, using the mask of accounts created in the last day. Perl is still alive, well, and growing. It's not the currently cool language d'jour like qw(Scala go F# rust ...). But people are shipping code with it, using it successfully for what it does best. Haters gonna hate, and one should generally…

> Amazing how, a decade or more after the python-perl skirmishes, some still ... still ... cannot give up their attacks on perl, using the mask of accounts created in the last day. I'm a fan of perl. I'm old school. I like C, perl, etc. I wasn't attacking perl. Just pointing out REALITY. > Haters gonna hate, and one should generally avoid feeding the several hour old trolls. Their trolling notwithstanding, rumors of…

I think the troll accusation might have been a bit overboard, but it's clear you're making some odd leaps in your assertions.

First, this submission is about the end of one person't handling of cpan search, not the end of CPAN, or the end of Perl. It's the change of the guard, from a lone person to a group. That doesn't exactly scream the end of something or insignificance.

Second, the comment you responded to was trying to make a point about the maintenance of old Perl. You didn't address that at all, and instead used it to make an alternate point entirely.

Really, it sort of came across like hijacking a thread to grind and axe. The problem is less the argument, and more the presentation. If you had instead presented an opinion in a bit softer manner, and asked how people thought, you might have gotten some useful responses and good discussion. Instead you made an assertion about the end of the subject of discussion, and called it defeated. It's not hard to see how some might interpreted that as an attack on the subject of their livelihood, given the general audience you could expect. At best it was tone-deaf.

Re: The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org

#125

Post by exikyut » Fri, May 25, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

mst wrote: post #16

kyoob wrote: post #2

This is truly a down moment, to be sure, but it's pretty telling that the site became too hard to maintain because it's written in old Perl. I'm not a Perl hater. I like Perl! I got my start in Perl and spoke at a YAPC::NA a few years ago. It's telling, is all I'm saying. It tells us something.

It tells us that a solo maintainer of a large project - with no assistance from the community possible, because closed source - trying to do it in his spare time, will eventually result in a massive accretion of technical debt. It's a testament to Graham's productivity that he was able to keep maintaining it for so long in spite of those disadvantages, and says very little about perl.

I'm curious why it was closed source. Contractual job requirement, proprietary search engine module, or...?