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Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

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Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#61

Post by danssig »

berntb wrote: post #58
danssig wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my posts were objective. If you find them trollish then I'd say you're too sensitive about it for some reason. You can say what ever you want about Lisp and I wouldn't be bother, for example.

Oh please, you're not a bad troll?! Here you did sweeping personal attacks on Perl programmers, based on some down votes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3159881 As I suggested, why don't you go to a discussion on Python, or something, and start writing personal attacks there. Then you'll see down votes... You wrote more than 10% of all comments in that Perl discussion too ... Get a life or start writing code for…

>Here you did sweeping personal attacks on Perl programmers

Again, you're projecting. I said "perl fanboys on this site". That's much less broad but you seem to not realize there is anything else?

>start writing personal attacks there

Why do you take fair critiques of the language as personal attacks? I think you need to read pg's essay about ID again.

>Get a life or start writing code for a hobby.

Again with the personal attacks. I have a life and I code for a hobby. That doesn't stop me from correcting fan boys who spread misinformation or distortions of the truth.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#62

Post by berntb »

danssig wrote: post #61
berntb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please, you're not a bad troll?! Here you did sweeping personal attacks on Perl programmers, based on some down votes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3159881 As I suggested, why don't you go to a discussion on Python, or something, and start writing personal attacks there. Then you'll see down votes... You wrote more than 10% of all comments in that Perl discussion too ... Get a life or start writing code for…

>Here you did sweeping personal attacks on Perl programmers Again, you're projecting. I said "perl fanboys on this site ". That's much less broad but you seem to not realize there is anything else? >start writing personal attacks there Why do you take fair critiques of the language as personal attacks? I think you need to read pg's essay about ID again. >Get a life or start writing code for a hobby. Again with the pe…

>>Why do you take fair critiques of the language as personal attacks?

Serious criticism like your "With things like this I would like to advocate that Perl be treated as politics" -- over a few down votes?!

That is fair and balanced criticism, not trolling at all..?! Thanks for a good laugh at your chutzpah. Go away.

>>I said "perl fanboys on this site"

Not in this discussion or in the comment I linked to. You said:

perl fans get seriously emotional about perl and start downvoting things they disagree with (much more so than ordinarily happens).

That is a personal attack, without any data, on Perl fans in general. So you flat out lie about what you write, troll.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#63

Post by dextorious »

phaylon wrote: post #60
cageface wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any new development, really. Don't get me wrong. I think Perl was a brilliant piece of language engineering in its day and its influence on subsequent "scripting" languages is unmistakable. But why would anyone without significant prior investment in the language choose it for new work now? It's just too cryptic and idiosyncratic compared to the obvious alternatives.

I just want to note that I would answer, if the question would seem in any way sincere. But I don't think I could say anything that would bring you to consider that other people might have other opinions, and that they're not simply invalid because you don't share them.

You understand that besides "opinions" and "sharing them" there is also an underlying objective reality right? At least in an engineering practice, like computing.

One doesn't have to consider "other opinions" or deem them "valid", if one knows them to be wrong. And in our profession we have lots of ways of knowing wrong from right.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#64

Post by ccashell »

njl wrote: post #11
astrodust wrote: post #4

In part I think it's because Perl is done. It works. It's effective. Extending Perl beyond what Perl is makes Perl something else. Perl 6 is barely Perl in any classical sense. The "Swiss Army Chainsaw" was never intended to be Java or C#. Its weaknesses, a lack of formal typing, a small, simple set of core data structures, a terse and convoluted syntax, are actually its strengths. Just as C++ is not really C, and Ja…

The successor to Perl is Ruby. System administration used to mean Perl, now it means Ruby. Fast web development used to mean Perl, now it means Ruby or Python. The successor to Perl is Ruby.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to completely disagree with you here.

I'm a sysadmin that does a decent amount of automation and scripting work. Almost all of that is done in Perl. Among the other guys on my team, everyone uses Perl, except for one person who uses Python.

We had one person who came into the team as a Ruby fan. Within 6 months of working with us, she'd become a Perl fan. She told me she'd passed on Perl and gone to Ruby because she'd heard bad things about Perl. After seeing it in use and checking it out a little closer, she realized that almost everything she'd heard "bad" was outdated, incorrect, or overstated.

Outside of my team, I know lots of people who use Perl, a decent number of people who use Python, and a very small number of people who actually use Ruby. Yeah, there's a few high-profile apps in it, and yeah, Ruby on Rails got it a lot of attention for quick and dirty web apps, but it has a long way to go before it'll reach anywhere near Perl (or even Python) is.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#65

Post by ccashell »

absconditus wrote: post #16
njl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The successor to Perl is Ruby. System administration used to mean Perl, now it means Ruby. Fast web development used to mean Perl, now it means Ruby or Python. The successor to Perl is Ruby.

I think that you are vastly overestimating Ruby's popularity outside of the HN crowd.

Agreed. Ruby is very popular in a few smallish circles. It's still essentially unknown pretty much everywhere that isn't a small web-based startup.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#66

Post by ccashell »

kamaal wrote: post #51
draegtun wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a developer who still does sysadmin on the side (and probably far too much for my liking!) and I always write my scripts in Perl or bash. And from what i've seen and anecdotally this still seems to be the common case (Java & Perl are the main languages used by companies in the City of London).

Actually nothing ever truly replaces those classic tools bash/awk/sed/perl. But every now and then you will see being compared with a . And then told since the is a little famous now, its likely to replace the and that actually proves is dead and is actually going to replace the in the future. Then suddenly expect a stream of tweets, blog posts and forum discussions on how useless . Please replace by "Perl","SQL","Ph…

Well said.

Sometimes a new tool will come along that truly is a huge improvement on previous tools. But, when those previous tools are "classics", it's pretty rare that the "new" tool is truly that much of an improvement.

There's a reason that these things (bash, sed, awk, perl, SQL, Unix/Linux, etc) are still popular and still going. It's because they're time tested, they're well known, and they work.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#67

Post by ccashell »

mey wrote: post #44
njl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The successor to Perl is Ruby. System administration used to mean Perl, now it means Ruby. Fast web development used to mean Perl, now it means Ruby or Python. The successor to Perl is Ruby.

When ever I drop in to write sysadmin scripts, I choose ruby, python or powershell depending on the platform. I never choose bash/dos batch/perl anymore. Granted I'm a developer who does sysadmin on the side. Edit: (Python on ubuntu, Powershell on windows, ruby on everything else. Python on ubuntu since it's there out of the box)

I'm a sysadmin who does development on the side.

When I start writing something, I think about how big I expect it to be. If it's expected to be 50 lines or less, then it's bash for general scripts, and awk for text filtering. If it's expected to be more than 50 lines, I go with Perl. That goes regardless of platform (as it's already available on every *nix platform I use, and Strawberry or ActiveState makes Perl easy to add on Windows).

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#68

Post by danssig »

berntb wrote: post #62
danssig wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here you did sweeping personal attacks on Perl programmers Again, you're projecting. I said "perl fanboys on this site ". That's much less broad but you seem to not realize there is anything else? >start writing personal attacks there Why do you take fair critiques of the language as personal attacks? I think you need to read pg's essay about ID again. >Get a life or start writing code for a hobby. Again with the pe…

>>Why do you take fair critiques of the language as personal attacks? Serious criticism like your " With things like this I would like to advocate that Perl be treated as politics " -- over a few down votes?! That is fair and balanced criticism, not trolling at all..?! Thanks for a good laugh at your chutzpah. Go away. >>I said "perl fanboys on this site" Not in this discussion or in the comment I linked to. You said…

>over a few down votes?!

That was an observation of mine. Perl fanboys are generally not capable of having a dispassionate discussion about perl's faults.

>That is a personal attack, without any data, on Perl fans in general.

Fan = Fanboy. It is a programming language. Being a "fan" of a tool is irrational. One should use the tool that works best (for some definition of best) and when that tool is no longer the best one should switch. Being a "fan" means to follow something even when it's not the best (e.g. Dallas Cowboys fan, even when they hadn't won a game in years). This is an utterly irrational stance for a tool.

By the way, the person who has been issuing the personal attacks here is you with your "go away" and troll accusations. I hope in time you can learn to be more civil in your discussions.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#69

Post by berntb »

danssig wrote: post #68
berntb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Why do you take fair critiques of the language as personal attacks? Serious criticism like your " With things like this I would like to advocate that Perl be treated as politics " -- over a few down votes?! That is fair and balanced criticism, not trolling at all..?! Thanks for a good laugh at your chutzpah. Go away. >>I said "perl fanboys on this site" Not in this discussion or in the comment I linked to. You said…

>over a few down votes?! That was an observation of mine. Perl fanboys are generally not capable of having a dispassionate discussion about perl's faults. >That is a personal attack, without any data, on Perl fans in general. Fan = Fanboy. It is a programming language . Being a "fan" of a tool is irrational. One should use the tool that works best (for some definition of best) and when that tool is no longer the best…

I got slammed by pg himself a while ago for being easily trolled, so I'll stop commenting.

Re: Why is Funding Perl Core Development So Difficult?

#70

Post by danssig »

berntb wrote: post #69
danssig wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>over a few down votes?! That was an observation of mine. Perl fanboys are generally not capable of having a dispassionate discussion about perl's faults. >That is a personal attack, without any data, on Perl fans in general. Fan = Fanboy. It is a programming language . Being a "fan" of a tool is irrational. One should use the tool that works best (for some definition of best) and when that tool is no longer the best…

I got slammed by pg himself a while ago for being easily trolled, so I'll stop commenting.

Link? I'd say your ID is too big (pg has an essay on it). If you say Lisp is crap, I'm not going to be offended even though I think it's a great language. It's something I use, it isn't part of who I am.
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