[tpm] Why perl lost steam...

[Stuart Watt]

  Let's face it, Perl isn't exactly easy. I am hoping Perl 6 may help, 
but Perl 5 sigils and context take a lot of getting used to. When I 
taught students, they had a hard enough time with basic Java - which is 
essentially a trivial language by comparison. And so, basically, are 
Python and Ruby.

Perl's merit is in the complex stuff. If all you need is standard SQL 
databases and CRUD, who cares? If you need to interface to LDAP, SNMP, 
Twitter, OpenSSL, math libraries, C code, email, ActiveX, etc. - that's 
when Java et al. gets harder and Perl gets easier. Especially when you 
need to connect several of them, which is typical.

Personally, I love Catalyst, for the purposes I use it for. But then I 
did web app development in Spring, which is very similar. Neither are 
for a quick start, they are for seriously architected large-scale 
systems. If you want to learn how to develop a good web app, there is a 
lot to be said for a larger-scale framework, as you need to get the hang 
of how to separate concerns and encapsulate business logic effectively.

Perl also (finally) has the object system it needed to do good 
architectures. With Moose roles, you can actually break up your code 
into functional components you cannot do with purely class-based 
languages. Spring's hacky AspectJ went towards this, with somewhat 
inexplicable terminology. The ideas Perl develops will continue to 
enhance other languages as the ideas become mainstream -- I am happy to 
work at the cutting edge that is modern Perl.

--S
--
stuart at morungos.com
twitter.com/morungos


On 9/21/2010 10:14 AM, Dave Doyle wrote:
> While I do believe Perl has lost steam in the publics eye, I don't buy 
> the hype.  CPAN is growing faster and faster (it's a curve).  This 
> year's YAPC had about 70% of folk going to their first or second YAPC. 
>  The ecosystem itself is doing just fine.
>
> That being said, I've looked and Django and Rails and they ain't my 
> thing (neither is Catalyst for that matter).  But there are other 
> options like Mojolicious and Dancer and as far as I'm concerned 
> CGI::App still gets the stuff done.  I think Dancer would be an 
> excellent way for newbies to get started in webdev in Perl.
>
> --
> dave.s.doyle at gmail.com <mailto:dave.s.doyle at gmail.com>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 9:47 AM, Martin at Cleaver.org 
> <Martin at cleaver.org <mailto:Martin at cleaver.org>> wrote:
>
>     I'd contend that building a Web app in Groovy on Grails is where
>     beginners should start.
>
>     Grails is one (not several competing) Web Framework, Groovy is
>     Java and J2EE compliant, yet a scripting language with closures
>     and implicit parallel programming support. Together they give you
>     scripting access to all the J2EE components developed over the
>     past decade while hiding the crappy verboseness of XML and Java.
>
>     Building a Web App? As much I know and like Perl I wouldn't start
>     a new Web App in one.
>
>
>     M.
>     --
>     Martin at Cleaver.org
>     http://twitter.com/mrjcleaver
>     +1 416-786-6752 (GMT-5)
>
>
>
>     On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 9:36 AM, <arocker at vex.net
>     <mailto:arocker at vex.net>> wrote:
>
>         >
>         > On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Bill Stephenson
>         <bills at ezinvoice.com <mailto:bills at ezinvoice.com>>
>         > wrote:
>
>         >> It would seem that right now, when "Web Apps" are really
>         coming into
>         >> their own, CGI scripts written in Perl would be the place that
>         >> "Beginners" would start looking.
>         >>
>
>         But CGI is sooo '90s, and even Web apps are passe now; it's
>         all smartphones.
>
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